September 20, 2018

Reviews

Nothing - "Dance On The Blacktop" | Album Review

September 20, 2018

Reviews

Nothing - "Dance On The Blacktop" | Album Review

Dance on the Blacktop is filled with the imagery of everyday life: street names, city landmarks, relationships, city life, family, creativity, late nights, and long days. But these topics are tweaked, shrouded in the darker side of these things.

September 19, 2018

by: Mike LeSuer

Reviews

Idles - "Joy As An Act Of Resistance" | Album Review

September 19, 2018

by: Mike LeSuer

Reviews

Idles - "Joy As An Act Of Resistance" | Album Review

As this backlash to the far-right and its Nazi-adjacent ideologies plays out simultaneously across the pond, IDLES have broken out as the saving grace of politically motivated punk with their radical sophomore triumph, Joy as an Act of Resistance.

September 18, 2018

by: Aly Eleanor

Reviews

Scrunchies - "Stunner" | Album Review

September 18, 2018

by: Aly Eleanor

Reviews

Scrunchies is the punk supergroup that Minneapolis deserves. Consisting of members of Double Grave, Tony Peachka, and Kitten Forever (all great in their own right), the band’s debut, Stunner, is a self-contained wildfire of punk energy.

September 17, 2018

by: nathan springer

Reviews

Ditto - "In Human Terms" [reissue] | Album Review

September 17, 2018

by: nathan springer

Reviews

Ditto - "In Human Terms" [reissue] | Album Review

Written, performed, and mixed by Charles Ditto, In Human Terms was self-released through Charles’ Ditto Records in 1987 and followed by Texas Electric in 1989, after which no further recordings were released.

September 14, 2018

by: Andrew Karpan

Reviews

Low - "Double Negative" | Album Review

September 14, 2018

by: Andrew Karpan

Reviews

It is one of the best albums of the band’s career: their most musically adventurous, a vivid and living sonic sculpture of songs that sequence into and out of each other, that enter and leave like waves beating the sides of a boat in a storm.

September 13, 2018

by: Dalvin Aboagye

Reviews

Ava Luna - "Moon 2" | Album Review

September 13, 2018

by: Dalvin Aboagye

Reviews

After a three-year hiatus, Ava Luna is strolling back into the spotlight with a strong return in the form of their latest LP Moon 2, which sees the Brooklyn-based indie rock group maintaining a stable position in an increasingly diverse and crowded lot of genre-bending acts.

September 12, 2018

by: Kris Handel

Reviews

Carlos Hernandez - "On Folly" | Album Review

September 12, 2018

by: Kris Handel

Reviews

Carlos Hernandez - "On Folly" | Album Review

On this outing Hernandez gets to expound on his own brand of R&B and multi-layered pop in greater depths and fully execute his own vision. Hernandez enlists help from time to time from some friends from the New York music/art scene to flesh everything out and add accompanying harmonies.

September 11, 2018

By: Allison Kridle

Reviews

Locate S,1 - "Healing Contest" | Album Review

September 11, 2018

By: Allison Kridle

Reviews

Locate S,1 - "Healing Contest" | Album Review

Flushed with front woman Christina Schneider’s velvety falsetto and jazzy melodies that often mold into pop ballads, the project bends in many different ways.

September 10, 2018

by: Nick Adams

Reviews

COMPs - "Life As A Baller" | Album Review

September 10, 2018

by: Nick Adams

Reviews

COMPs - "Life As A Baller" | Album Review

Webb, otherwise known as COMPs, is a true independent—self-producing and playing every instrument on record, including the programmed drums. But his greatest strength is his ability to write memorable melodies, boiling indie rock down to its catchiest elements.

September 7, 2018

by: Brian Manley

Reviews

Thee Open Sex - "White Horses" | Album Review

September 7, 2018

by: Brian Manley

Reviews

Thee Open Sex - "White Horses" | Album Review

Bloomington, Indiana’s Thee Open Sex: Where the shadows are stretched into clouded psych, canvased sheets of whispered muse stretched thin but strong with creeping sounds and tribal beats.

September 5, 2018

by: Lydia Pudzianowski

Reviews

Babehoven - "Sleep" | Album Review

September 5, 2018

by: Lydia Pudzianowski

Reviews

On first listen, Bon’s vocals are enough to convince you to buy whatever she’s selling, so it’s a bonus that the material on Sleep is on par with the voice that drew you in. Over the course of its five songs, the album showcases Bon’s impressive range, both in songwriting and performance.

September 4, 2018

by: Ryan Bollenbach

Reviews

Thou - "Magus" | Album Review

September 4, 2018

by: Ryan Bollenbach

Reviews

A finely chiseled sculpture this album is not. These songs avoid the metal-by-numbers feel of neatly-divided sections set off by telegraphed transitions. Rather, these songs move languidly from part to part via understated hinge points: a short lead riff ringing out once or twice; a change in the chugging rhythm and a slight decrease in tempo.

August 31, 2018

by: Thrin Vianale

Reviews

Tundrastomper - "For Steffen Only" | Album Review

August 31, 2018

by: Thrin Vianale

Reviews

Tundrastomper - "For Steffen Only" | Album Review

This past July, Western Massachusetts’s Tundrastomper released their experimental cassette For Steffen Only, a tumultuous, glittering, pummeling, and yet soothing collection of archived live recordings, demos, found sounds, and lush instrumentation.

August 30, 2018

by: Brian Manley

Reviews

Bummer - "Holy Terror" | Album Review

August 30, 2018

by: Brian Manley

Reviews

Holy Terror is an apt name for a burner that isn’t necessarily frightening, but hulking and hair-raising. From the opening frenzy of “HeXXX Games,” Bummer reveals itself as a steward of noise rock, stirring the nest with a popeyed mass of stops, lurchings and oozings brewed within the feedback

August 29, 2018

by: Joe Wasserman

Reviews

Ratboys - "GL" | Album Review

August 29, 2018

by: Joe Wasserman

Reviews

Ratboys know what they’re doing on GN’s coda EP, GL. It’s almost scary how good they are at doing what they do best: crafting country-tinged songs with heart for the indie rock and emo crowd.

August 28, 2018

by: Louis Marrone

Reviews

Vein - "Errorzone" | Album Review

August 28, 2018

by: Louis Marrone

Reviews

At a speedy 20 minutes, Vein exhales a powerful breath of life into hardcore. There is this great sense of energy and aggression that goes into everything from the instrumentals to the vocals.

August 27, 2018

by: Joe Gutierrez

Reviews

Birthing Hips - "Urge to Merge" | Album Review

August 27, 2018

by: Joe Gutierrez

Reviews

Birthing Hips - "Urge to Merge" | Album Review

Urge to Merge, the second and final record from Birthing Hips, decimates any expectations of what a band of bass, drums, guitar, and vocals, can do in a room together. On Bandcamp, they describes themselves as “noisy defective pop music for freaks,” and the label holds up.

August 24, 2018

by: Kris Handel

Reviews

Baked - "II" | Album Review

August 24, 2018

by: Kris Handel

Reviews

II shows the growth in Baked’s song crafting that is very respectable and plays up the focused and sharpened performances on this release. Baked still retain their muscular arrangements and stomping rhythms, but the addition of some poppier harmonies adds a new dimension.

August 23, 2018

by: Matthew Sigur

Reviews

Ethers - "Ethers" | Album Review

August 23, 2018

by: Matthew Sigur

Reviews

Culled from the scrapyard of Chicago bands that called it quits, Ethers is a quartet that nails the ragged glory of rock ’n’ roll on its self-titled debut.

August 22, 2018

by: Kris Handel

Reviews

Tomberlin - "At Weddings" | Album Review

August 22, 2018

by: Kris Handel

Reviews

Tomberlin - "At Weddings" | Album Review

At Weddings has a very confessional feel to it, highlighted by the masterful use of empty spaces, echo and general atmosphere that hammers home the deep and heavy emotional searching.