• Rise Against – Wolves

    June 12, 2017 - By 

    To Rise Against’s credit, they’ve at least maintained some degree of credibility in the face of success. The Chicago four-piece has spent the last decade rather comfortably at the top of the Billboard charts. They’ve long since bypassed the underground and are pretty firmly well established in the mainstream. Yet, unlike countless others in a similar position, they’ve retained their fundamental beliefs. They’re vegan, straight edgers with strong political ideologies and are unafraid to fly their flags high. This is the kind of band who include a recommended reading and viewing lists in their liner notes. These lists have included Naomi…

  • Beach Fossils – Somersault

    June 6, 2017 - By 

    It’s fairly easy to write off a group like Beach Fossils upon the first impression. While we can’t judge books by their cover, those sleeves are designed to give you the most concise definition of its contents, so there must be some merit. A cursory glance at the group reveals exactly what you need to know about them. These are four dudes from Brooklyn dressed in thrift shop finest and baseball caps. They produce lo-fi, Yo La Tengo inflected indie rock-and-droll with whispery vocals and enough irony to make Malkmus look sincere. They’re another group of stoned hipsters talking about…

  • The Mountain Goats – Goths

    May 19, 2017 - By 

    The truth isn’t as truthful as it once was. The line between slander and sincerity is blurred beyond recognition. It’s comforting that there are some ideas with an aura of objective honesty. One of them is this: The Mountain Goats, and by extension John Darnielle, do not make bad songs. It’s been nearly three decades and the man has a track record to rival Lasse Virén. He’s not the type to rush and hastily release some cash grab. Even a cursory glance shows how much his work is defined by care, consideration and an unwavering cynicism. From his earlier stripped…

  • At The Drive In – in•ter a•li•a

    May 9, 2017 - By 

    For a long time, it was hard to envision any kind of world where El Paso’s At The Drive-In could amicably sit silently in a room with one another, let alone make music together. Not that there weren’t calamitous appeals from legions of devotees. These five men crafted the most indispensable punk music of the 1990s. Along with Refused and Jawbreaker, they earned a level of adoration and obsession that few can only dream. As time rolled on and lucrative reunion tour deals reared their ugly heads, these fantasies began veering alarmingly close to reality. Now, Refused are fucking undead,…

  • Gorillaz – Humanz

    May 3, 2017 - By 

    We should all be honest and accept that this record was never going to match the expectation that preceded it. Gorillaz have been a reliable stalwart for over a decade now and their brand of politically motivated electronica and hip-hop has consistently delivered. They’ve soundtracked environmental decay, an Iraq war, and a recession and now, with a despot in the white house, it’s unsurprising that Damon Albarn chose this moment to return. What is surprising though is how limp and muddy it feels. Humanz is not the record it could be. It’s unfocused, messy and, worse still, pedestrian. A guest…

  • Count Vaseline – Cascade

    April 21, 2017 - By 

    One of the more surprisingly common risky moves in music is trying to ape the Beatles. It’s a losing battle from the get-go. No matter how shit hot you think you are, you’ll never be the celestial beings known as the fab three. You could be Ringo though. With such a high risk of failure and the rewards amounting to damning praise, why bother? The correct reason is that you can use their framework to ease the listener into the right mindset. This is what Count Vaseline has done to great effect on his latest LP, Cascade. The title track…

  • Happyness – Write In

    April 12, 2017 - By 

    Let us begin with a simple, easy to follow tip. It is seldom a good idea to listen to people who take their grammatical cues from Will Smith Oscar Bait. Might seem like a wise move at first, but therein lies danger. Happyness are a decent old fashioned, fuzzed out indie band, in the American sense of the genre; their style being essentially comprised of many long, drawn out jams that stretch on into the horizon. Speed and brevity are not any kinds of priority. While this has lent to a variety of dreamy, spaced out cuts in the past…

  • Mount Eerie – A Crow Looked At Me

    March 27, 2017 - By 

    You did not walk with me Of late to the hill-top tree By the gated ways, As in earlier days; You were weak and lame, So you never came, And I went alone, and I did not mind, Not thinking of you as left behind.   I walked up there to-day Just in the former way; Surveyed around The familiar ground By myself again: What difference, then? Only that underlying sense Of the look of a room on returning thence.   Thomas Hardy In July of 2016, musician Geneviève Castrée died.  She was survived by husband Phil Elverum and her…

  • Spoon – Hot Thoughts

    March 24, 2017 - By 

    There is a problem with longevity. Unless you’re Bowie, you’ll run out of things to say, or at the very least interesting ways to say it. Spoon, who’ve been rolling on for over two decades, seem to have finally reached that point. It’s been a long time since Kill the Moonlight, Gimme Fiction and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga graced our shelves. Now they’re on their ninth LP and the strain shows. Hot Thoughts isn’t bad, it’s perfectly serviceable. It hits all the target a record of this ilk should. Britt Daniel’s distinctive yelp is still offset by some killer…

  • Hurray For The Riff Raff – The Navigator

    March 14, 2017 - By 

    On paper, what about a blues folk concept album dealing with a young Puerto Rican’s perspective of her city and homogenisation of her culture should work? On genre level, it’s far too grand an idea. This almost operatic scope isn’t suited to the gritty sensibilities of folk or blues music. Their key hitters are typically the minor, metaphorical pieces which possess a great deal of power and heft, but which diluted at scale. Even on the thematic level, it shouldn’t work. The loss of and longing for some kind “home” is well-trodden ground, but the metropolitan Hispanic immigrant version doesn’t…