Yuck - "Stranger Things" | Album Review
Yuck is a band whose name in turns defines and disguises them. At times their music has been wonderfully ugly, changing pop-rock songs to fuzzy, grime-coated anthems. At other times they employ a gentle touch and all but beg to be understood and felt on a deeper level. Both of these methods have worked for the band in the past, but the challenge has been marrying these two discordant identities.
WALL - "WALL" | Album Review
Never Young - "NY Singles Tape" | Album Review
Bay Area, California upstarts Never Young continue their upward trajectory with their latest offering, NY Singles Tape. They continue to blend the organic with the ethereal and otherworldly on this three song collection of singles. Featuring members of much-loved Bay Area bands like Calculator, Toner, and Happy Diving; what was once a two piece consisting of co-songwriters Christopher Adams and Nikolas Soelter is now a full-fledged quartet featuring bassist Niko Escudero and drummer Samuelito Cruz.
Cold Sweats - "Social Coma" | Album Review
Bethlehem Steel - "Docking" | Album Review
Led by Becca Ryskalczyk, the recently transplanted Brooklyn-based band have generated a handful of songs checkered with fuzz, soft vocal melody, punctuating bass, and sinuous drums. The sometimes quivering, sometimes belting voice of Ryskalczyk maintains a sense of order and control over the ever-shifting dynamic.
Deerhoof - "Fever 121614" | Album Review
Recorded and filmed live in Tokyo, Deerhoof’s Fever 121614 is a multimedia offering (video & audio) that, in 40 minutes, compacts 10+ years of music into a tightly tailored, 12 track live set. It’s the perfect intro into Deerhoof’s expansive and eccentric discography for a new listener, and a brilliant reminder to old fans why this band is so, so important.
Kal Marks - "Life Is Alright, Everybody Dies" | Album Review
Life is Alright, Everybody Dies is a complex beast, and one that requires numerous listens to fully engage. Kal Marks are making a brand of catharsis rock that seems content being deeply isolated from a wider audience -- it’d be a stretch to say that Shane wants everyone to understand what he’s created. This benefits Kal Marks though, as they’re one of the bands that make their name finding a middle ground between relatability and extraordinary talent.
Sauna Youth - "Distractions" | Album Review
Pigs - "Wronger" | Album Review
Wronger, released late last year, is the band's second full-length and, like its predecessor, it is full of the gravelly noise rock that its members are known for making throughout their careers. Comparisons to those earlier projects, along with bands like Atlanta's Whores or Athens, GA's Jucifer will surely abound, but what sets PIGS apart from their brethren is how much more they are.
Jesu/Sun Kil Moon - "Jesu/Sun Kil Moon" | Album Review
While this collaborative effort between post-metal shoegazers Jesu and confessional crooner Sun Kil Moon doesn’t quite creep its way toward words like masterpiece or classic, it is an impressively rich and engaging musical experiment – a coalescence of disparate sensibilities that form something new, if not entirely unique.
Running - "Wake Up Applauding" | Album Review
Porches - "Pool" | Album Review
The third full-length output from Aaron Maine as Porches, his first for Domino Records, is among other things, a noted departure from Slow Dance in the Cosmos. On Pool, Maine, and by extension the band, trade warm rock for a far colder sound – mostly eschewing live drums and guitars and instead working primarily with a varied palate of bass tones and synthesizers.
Lushes - "Service Industry" | Album Review
Two Inch Astronaut - "Personal Life" | Album Review
The Spirit of the Beehive - "You Are Arrived (But You've Been Cheated)" | Album Review
The newest record from The Spirit of the Beehive entitled You are Arrived (but You’ve Been Cheated) is a fever dream that sets the listener in a dark bedroom writhing in sweat-soaked blankets. This release isn’t so much of a departure from their previous self titled LP as it is a descent deeper into the swirling dream world that the band has created.
Pile - "Jerk Routine" | Album Review
Space Mountain - "Gangantua" | Album Review
Ty Segall - "Emotional Mugger" | Album Review
In a 2013 interview via The Drone, Ty Segall explains his obsession with garage rock at an early age. “The only flaw of garage rock,” he mentions, “is the repetition.” Over the course of his insistent stream of studio albums, Segall has proven that he’s serious about that claim. With Emotional Mugger, he takes Bowie’s credence in shape shifting and, on first listen, gives us his strangest album to date.
Washer - "Here Comes Washer" | Album Review
Washer finds a happy medium between the pop sensibilities you may find in the late ‘90s—early 2000’s punk scene and the fuzzy, slightly-math-rock influenced work of their EIS peers. Most songs on the record are singalong friendly, while some contain a part or two that induces finger-counting, or an ending seemingly unrelated to the rest of the track