Crag Mask - "Bend" | Album Review
One of the most impressive things about Bend is how nimble the songwriting is. Listen to the transitions; the band is able to get from points A to B in clever ways that never sound fussy or overly technical. Keys shift and time signatures change, and if you aren’t keeping a close watch, you won’t even notice.
Nonlocal Forecast - "Bubble Universe!" | Album Review
It’s been four months since Nonlocal Forecast’s Hausu Mountain debut and picking the right words to describe its brilliance has become nearly impossible. As the sidestep project of Fire-Toolz’ Angel Marcloid, Nonlocal Forecast showcases the Chicago-based producer’s remarkably deft hand in electronic novelty on Bubble Universe!
Viking Moses - "Cruel Child" | Album Review
Keiji Haino & Sumac - "Even for just the briefest moment / Keep charging this “expiation” / Plug in to making it slightly better" | Album Review
Returning not only to their incredibly long-winded album and track titles, but also to their improvisational, doom-steeped metal, Keiji Haino & SUMAC return with Even for just the briefest moment, an album split into four tracks, capturing the collaborators' behemothic live performance from Tokyo in 2017.
Haybaby - "They Get There" | Album Review
Summer Cannibals - "Can't Tell Me No" | Album Review
Can’t Tell Me No is the fourth full length from Summer Cannibals, now a quartet hailing from Oregon and although the roaring guitars and pummeling rhythms remain, this record shows a little bit more nuance in sound. Jessica Boudreaux’s songwriting maintains a certain toughness, but there is a bit more bounce and softening of edges.
Palehound - "Black Friday" | Album Review
Cave In - "Final Transmission" | Album Review
The first new album in eight years from beloved MA band Cave In should be a cause for celebration and in a way Final Transmission is still a chance to celebrate. Only, with the passing of Caleb Scofield who was tragically killed in an auto accident in 2018 the album has become the celebration of a life, an honoring and a goodbye instead of a return.
Ava Luna - "Pigments" | Album Review
Sebadoh - "Act Surprised" | Album Review
Act Surprised is the latest in the lengthy travails of beloved ‘indie’ punk trio Sebadoh, that has seen the band go through countless ups and downs in a myriad of ways. Sebadoh have had quite an eclectic career from the early ‘lo-fi’ albums of fractured folk and collages of noise, to a period of punk blasts and heart on the sleeve songcraft that garnered some acclaim
Dumb - "Club Nites" | Album Review
Gilliver - "Gilded Lily" | Album Review
For a debut album, it’s a doomy fist pump for those who wander and eat berries and work too damn hard just to get nowhere but the place you started. And already with two tours in their mullets, Gilliver is living their days out fixing up a school bus and farming up a dangerous cord of kindling for the next heart-shaker.
Sonic Youth - "Battery Park, NYC: July 4, 2008" | Album Review
Battery Park, NYC: July 4, 2008 is exactly what you can expect from a band that had recorded in 1987’s Sister and 1988’s Daydream Nation. In fact there are the characteristic evolutions of the noise that make Sonic Youth so lovable. Redundancies of melancholic feedback that tell of humanity in its highest poetic form of poverty and essentiality.
Jeanines - "Jeanines" | Album Review
New York City-based Jeanines are a duo comprised of Alicia Jeanine and Jed Smith who, together, make music that is equal parts wistfully nostalgic and strikingly present. Their self-titled, debut album for Slumberland - which follows the release of a few demo tracks, a standalone single and two covers - is a collection of razor sharp, 60s influenced indie pop.
