The Cradle - "Laughing In My Sleep" | Album Review
There is something so purely free about The Cradle’s latest LP, Laughing In My Sleep. Drawing from various worlds of music, its an eclectic listen made up of medieval melodies and Éthiopiques-inspired polyrhythms. Paco Cathcart equally embraces olden folk tunes as much as he does avant-garde / post-punk experiments.
Sweeping Promises - "Hunger For a Way Out" | Album Review
J. Zunz - "Hibiscus" | Album Review
Dua Saleh - "Rosetta" | Album Review
Knot - "Knot" | Album Review
Sometimes out of the ashes rises something even more astonishing and beautiful than that was once before it, Knot prove that axiom to be wholly true. With their self-titled debut, the quartet have made an album full of intense questioning, rising anger and reveling in a universal interconnectedness.
Elliott Smith - "Elliott Smith: Expanded 25th Anniversary Edition" | Album Review
Elliott Smith’s self titled is an utterly depressing album to its core. It’s full of some of the most haunting and beautiful songs you’ll ever hear, but it’ll take a toll on your mood by the end of it. It’s littered with reoccurring themes of drug abuse, feeling strung out, and self hatred throughout the tracklist.
Watcher - "Punishment" | Album Review
When the world is on fire, sometimes it’s best to embrace your anger, and that’s exactly what Watcher have done with their latest album. Influenced by American death metal like Morbid Angel and Death, sludge rockers like Harvey Milk, along with Revolution Summer-era bands, Punishment is a clear refinement of Watcher’s sound.
Eric Slick - "Wiseacre" | Album Review
Gone are the days of “Love, love me do”, which is why Eric Slick’s decision to make a love album, a top-to-bottom expression of sweet, childish, jealous, insecure, saccharine love, is so refreshing. It’s not cool to wear your heart on your sleeve, but Wiseacre isn’t concerned with aloof nonchalance.
Illuminati Hotties - "FREE I.H: This Is Not the One You've Been Waiting For" | Album Review
With the exception of the title and cover, there’s no strong indication that this is a record made to fulfill an obligation required to exit a record contract. This is a fun and energetic set of songs that contains a sense of levity throughout. Even when the subject matter is weighty, there is either a tenderness or momentum.
Bully - "Sugaregg" | Album Review
On their third record, SUGAREGG, they’re at the top of their game, with what feels like an impossible amount of energy. It’s fascinating how easy it is to point to a song and know it’s Bully, they’re unmistakable, a band that sounds distinct in a crowded genre, in large part to bandleader Alicia Bognanno’s raspy, oft shouted vocals.
Helvetia - "This Devastating Map" | Album Review
Helvetia is back with the charmingly lo-fi This Devastating Map. The solo project of Jason Albertini, an original member of Duster and former bass player for Built to Spill, each release from Helvetia manages to sound different from the last, yet usually sits within a common realm: fuzzy, home recorded psych-pop music.
Pile - "Demonstration" (Reissue) | Album Review
Sunforger - "Mono No Aware" (Reissue) | Album Review
Winter - "Endless Space (Between You & I)" | Album Review
Endless Space (Between You & I) is entirely a record of its own, suffused with a purity that only true dream pop can provide. Everything is ethereal (unsurprising from the person who released an EP titled Ethereality in 2018) and the songs never cease to sparkle, awash as they are in technicolor reverie.
V.V. Lightbody - "Make A Shrine Or Burn It" | Album Review
V.V. Lightbody is the type of artist that will take your breath away. She writes expertly crafted songs that are steeped in emotional nuance and humble wisdom. On Make A Shrine Or Burn It her self described “Nap Rock” sound is built up into an endlessly entertaining album of complex arrangements and tightly performed musical moments.
Squirrel Flower - "I Was Born Swimming" | Album Review
In some ways, I Was Born Swimming is a perfect record for this period of isolation. Recounting intimate moments from her life (literally starting from her own birth on the titular track), Williams navigates through feelings of loneliness, anxiousness, and heartbreak with the goal of constantly moving forward.
Deerhoof & Wadada Leo Smith - "To Be Surrounded By Beautiful, Curious, Breathing, Laughing Flesh Is Enough" | Album Review
The aptly titled To Be Surrounded…, which takes its title from a Walt Whitman poem, feels like a gift to everyone currently missing the energy of live performance. The album’s eleven tracks not only capture the excitement of a top-notch band bringing some of their most beloved songs to life, but also that of organic collaboration.
Gulch - "Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress" | Album Review
Double Grave - "Goodbye, Nowhere!" | Album Review
On Goodbye, Nowhere!, the sophomore record from Minneapolis’ Double Grave, emptiness faces a reckoning. The trio has been working towards this album for nearly half a decade, starting as Ego Death and evolving into Double Grave. Each subsequent release has brought them closer to perfecting their form of existential shoegaze.