Andy Shauf - "The Party" | Album Review
Canadian singer-songwriter Andy Shauf’s album The Party is a masterful work with a compelling narrative about youth and heartbreak. The Party is Shauf’s debut on Anti- Records, telling the tale of a party and the small secrets revealed and social mishaps occurring in a single evening. The songs have a cinematic, quiet beauty to them, with layers of keys, trumpet, guitar and softly pounding drums.
Radiohead - "A Moon Shaped Pool" | Album Review
"The Man Named Turtle" | Documentary Review
Buck Gooter’s heart and soul resides in the comparatively stoic sixty-four year old guitarist/singer Terry Turtle. The sight of Terry onstage shredding and belting like he never passed twenty is guaranteed to linger in concert-goers heads long after Buck Gooter leaves the stage. After more than ten years of playing together Billy decided to team up with Harrisonburg based videographer Joey Bell to create The Man Named Turtle as a way of unwrapping and contextualizing the history of such a unique musician.
EARRING - "Tunn Star" | Album Review
Mourn - "Ha, Ha, He." | Album Review
Few things sound as good as MOURN when they’re at their best, juxtaposing primarily minor chord progressions with a sturdy foundation courtesy of a rhythm section that takes turns providing the spine of their songs. They are relentless in their willingness to make music that takes itself seriously, but only to a point.
Luggage - "Sun" | Album Review
Flat Swamp - "By All Means" | Album Review
Eskimeaux - "Year of The Rabbit" | Album Review
Year of the Rabbit has a slightly darker tone than it's predecessor, O.K. Melodically, YOTR feels like a classic Eskimeaux album. It chronologically fits into Smith's discography like a glove. Lyrically, Smith matures with each release. In a short amount of time, the album hits on themes of personal growth, insecurity, fear, love, and lust.
Lady Bones - "Terse" | Album Review
Mrs. Magician - "Bermuda" | Album Review
Cat Be Damned - "Daydreams In A Roach Motel" | Album Review
Daydreams in a Roach Motel is a deeply weird release, one that pushes past a stale game of “spot the reference” to paint a larger regional portrait of gender identity and spiritual renewal, of life and death, horizon and transience in the thick flow of the James. Cat Be Damned’s hazy lo-fi feels like a fitting artifact of too many landscapes to count, compounded over soft synths and hushed vocals that teeter towards collapse.
Car Seat Headrest - "Teens of Denial" | Album Review
Car Seat Headrest songs are about the big, scary questions that we’re all asking ourselves. Although Toledo doesn’t claim to have the answers, you still end up feeling empowered as a listener. The record captures the all too familiar sense of emptiness and uncertainty that comes with the start of adulthood, and it will fiercely resonate with young people who are trying to figure out how to live in a world that feels like it's falling apart more everyday.
Cende - "EP" | Album Review
Left & Right - "Pivot Foot" | Album Review
Julia Brown - "An Abundance of Strawberries" | Album Review
Sam Ray is the bedroom-pop powerhouse behind Julia Brown. The project formed in 2013 with the release of To Be Close To You- a light-hearted indie pop album full of lo-fi love songs. With An Abundance… Julia Brown returns, taking on a much darker tone and hitting on sadder elements of love including loss, heartbreak, desire and dread.
PJ Harvey - "The Hope Six Demolition Project" | Album Review
PJ Harvey is a subversive and uncompromising artist that rewards a deep immersion in her music. Her output generally defies easy categorization and straightforward subject matter. The Hope Six Demolition Project isn’t any different, although this time I’ve been struggling with the effectiveness of her observational presentation.
Suuns - "Hold/Still" | Album Review
This experimental art-rock crew has built a solid following over the last six years with incredibly haunting tunes that range in style from the brooding, mobile squall of 2010’s debut Zeroes QC to the cold, bodily grooves of 2013’s Images du Futur, all the while incorporating the breathy, alarming moments of early 2000s Radiohead into an eerie palette of psychedelia, krautrock, and oddly driving rhythms. But only “Leyla,” from last year’s collaborative album with Jerusalem in My Heart, points towards the sparseness of Suuns’ newest LP, Hold/Still.
Valley Slander - "How Animal" | Album Review
Valley Slander’s debut release How Animal is a brief and excellently crafted slice of modern no-wave influenced punk music with a distinct southern vibe. Valley Slander hail from Harrisonburg, Virginia; a small college-town located deep in the valleys surrounding the Shenandoah Mountain Range. Their downbeat, mid-paced, scorching brand of punk is equal parts doomed hardcore and southern sway that harvests inspiration from the rotten end of southern life.
