Modern Nature - "Annual" | Album Review
Where before Modern Nature found urgency in exploring their sonic boundaries though - dipping into everything from krautrock to free jazz - Annual is a conceptual rather than experimental piece. Annual documents one year in Cooper’s life, with his thoughts drawn from a journal filled with ideas and notes.
Momma - "Two of Me" | Album Review
Dougie Poole - "The Freelancer's Blues" | Album Review
Little Kid - "Transfiguration Highway" | Album Review
Just in time for the height of leafy backroad drives and sleepy afternoons spent in a humid sun, Toronto’s most underrated folk-rock outfit Little Kid have dropped the ideal summer album. Transfiguration Highway is a beautiful exploration of self-worth and spiritual identity through a lens of religious mysticism.
Fiona Apple - "Fetch The Bolt Cutters" | Album Review
Cable Ties - "Far Enough" | Album Review
Far Enough contains rallying cries against power, gatekeepers, cynicism, greed, and all the other obstacles that attempt to wear and beat people down till they’re too exhausted to fight back. It’s all housed in thick, driving bass lines, quick, steady drums, and stabbing guitar work. It’s punk that is still incredibly catchy and hook laden.
Pottery - "Welcome To Bobby's Motel" | Album Review
“Welcome to Bobby’s Motel, the place where all your dreams come true.” Those are the first lyrics we hear on Welcome to Bobby’s Motel, the debut long player from Montreal band Pottery. After hearing the full album, those introductory words seem apt; Pottery proceeds to take the listener on a sonic odyssey, criss crossing genres.
Jason Simon - "A Venerable Wreck" | Album Review
Yawners - "Just Calm Down" | Album Review
Spain's Yawners honestly feels like they've emerged from a time capsule buried deep in the earth some time in the previous decade. The prickly, precious little confections they bake up on their latest album, Just Calm Down, are so delicate and delightful that they will feel like they could melt in your mouth.
Esther Rose - "My Favorite Mistakes" | Album Review
Catharsis has always lain within a truly heartbreaking country song: a few minutes of ached crying, staring into the abyss of romance and loss, and a temporary peace comes over the singer. This is something Esther Rose recognizes and so we have her new EP, filled with covers of some of her favorite depressing country anthems.
No Age - "Goons Be Gone" | Album Review
Built to Spill - "Built to Spill Plays The Songs of Daniel Johnston" | Album Review
This covers album is essentially a cleanup of Johnston’s ramshackle workings, an imagining of how the outsider artist may have sounded if he hadn’t been plagued by weighty personal issues and a lack of quality recordings. There is no attempt to match the wild spirit of Johnston - they couldn’t - instead offering a fair homage to the icon.
Virginia Trance - "Vincent's Playlist" | Album Review
Scott Ryan Davis (Psychic Ills) brings us an album vastly differing in tone to the experimental psychedelia of that band’s work, a welcomingly soft departure. Vincent’s Playlist feels intensely personal, a loving remembrance of the glory of guitar music. The songs scratch and soar as if they had arrived from a Flying Nun Records release.
The Cool Greenhouse - "The Cool Greenhouse" | Album Review
The Cool Greenhouse’s self-titled LP presents a series of nightmarish vignettes and seedy character studies to reveal the faux-idyllicism of provincial life. The band succeeds in crafting a matching sonic space to the album’s uncanny and foreboding lyrical world, where the true strength of their debut lies.
Elder - "Omens" | Album Review
Jehnny Beth - "To Love Is To Live" | Album Review
Mr. Elevator - "Goodbye, Blue Sky" | Album Review
Their new album Goodbye, Blue Sky is an acid soaked voyage to the distant cosmos. It is sonically ambitious and rewarding. They’ve moved far beyond the garage pop sensibilities of Nico...and her Psychedelic Subconscious into a universe of dark atmospheric swells, lush vocals, and larger than life synth and organ arrangements.
ONO - "Red Summer" | Album Review
Their website header reads “The ONO Statement of Purpose: Experimental, Noise, and Industrial Poetry Performance Band Exploring Gospel's Darkest Conflicts, Tragedies and Premises.” Forty years into their existence, their motive remains incredibly potent; ONO’s artistic mission is as important as ever on Red Summer.
Varsity - "Fine Forever" | Album Review
Varsity’s sound has been revised with each release since they formed in 2013. What has remained static, though, is the persevering spirit at their core. Even when broaching darker topics, there is an optimism present that is absent from their peers. Their new album Fine Forever takes that resilience and embraces it at every juncture.