California Wives — Art History: sparkling, thickly layered guitar pop that makes great use of vocals as instruments, and repeated choruses as sonic texture. Really compelling listening, and the only word for it really is ethereally beautiful. (Saw them this week opening for Stars, and they fucking blew me away. Get this album now, because…
Tag: album reviews
album review: will johnson — scorpion
Will Johnson — Scorpion. Out today. For about a month, the only thing I had written in the draft of this review was ~~FEELINGS~~, because that was how I felt whenever I listened to it. And when I say listened to it, I really mean got totally hung up on “You Will Be Here, Mine”…
album review: patterson hood — heat lightning rumbles in the distance
Patterson Hood — Heat Lightning Rumbles In The Distance. Out 9/4, ATO Records. Patterson Hood has always been my least favorite songwriter of those who’ve passed through and stayed in the Drive-By Truckers; this doesn’t mean I don’t love Patterson’s songwriting, not by any stretch of the imagination, because I do, and he’s written some of…
two sentence reviews of reasonably new albums i listened to in august
Short on numbers, long on excellence! Rhett Miller — The Dreamer: Rhett always saves some of his strongest songwriting for his occasional solo records — “I Need To Know Where I Stand”, off the self-titled, would have made a killer 97s rock anthem, except that instead it’s a gorgeous acoustic plaint — and his June…
two sentence reviews of reasonably new albums i listened to in june and july
The Last Bison — Quill: plinking acoustic folk with fierce vocals; this is an album that’s marked by its spaces as much as its music, places the strong vocal lines and harmonies stand out a cappella. Quill is heavy with strings that don’t usually make it onto an American-influenced album, and it stands out with…
album review: the gaslight anthem – handwritten
if i put too much blood on the page If you’re already a fan of swaggering Jersey rockers the Gaslight Anthem, then you already know what Handwritten, the band’s fourth full-length and major label debut, sounds like: it sounds like the Gaslight Anthem, and it’s merely a matter of where it ends up falling on…
show preview: these united states & the henry clay people
These United States headline the 506 tonight, in support of their new self-titled record, supported by the Henry Clay People, in support of their new record, Twenty-Five For The Rest Of Our Lives. 9PM, $11. You can make this show and still catch Slingshot Cash at the Nightlight later on; that’s what I’m doing. These…
album review: jon lindsay — summer wildnerness program
Jon Lindsay — Summer Wildnerness Program. Out tomorrow. Jon Lindsay’s Summer Wilderness Program opens with a track called “Oceans More”, a track that on any other album of this title with this release day, would be a sunny, hand-clappy summer anthem — but Lindsay is best at subverting paradigms with his songwriting, and “Oceans More”…
ha ha tonka — death of a decade
Ha Ha Tonka — Death of a Decade. Out tomorrow, Bloodshot Records. Start right off: where Ha Ha Tonka’s 2009 masterpiece Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South starts quiet and builds to the crescendos of “Walking On The Devil’s Backbone” and “Close Every Valve To Your Bleeding Heart” in the middle of the record before…
album review: wintersleep — hello hum
Wintersleep — Hello Hum. Out June 12, Roll Call Records. To call Canadian rockers Wintersleep a mere “indie rock” band is to fall back on genres, and to dismiss the so much more than makes up their complete distinct sound: there’s hardcore guitars and a punk mentality, a lot of synth pop and drumming that…
brand new kind of photography 