Score: 8.5/10 . To me, Guided by Voices are more proof than anything else that music can’t save the world, because they make the sort of mind-bogglingly invigorating pop/rock, bare and full of rich lyricism, that can’t help but attract thoughts of the concept of “perfection,” and yet here we are anyway on the verge […]
Score: 6/10 . As any extra-punctilious music peddler knows, Iron & Wine is an act that sort of has to be taken with a grain of salt. They are indeed EXTRA mellow. It is music rendered as an escape from life, probably even more so than Beach House is, or just as much, at least. […]
Score: 9/10 . It’s ironic, when you think about it, that The National are so universally revered and Coldplay are so universally plundered, because the two bands are really very similar. They came around at just about the same time as each other and their singers sound pretty alike over melodramatic pop/rock. Of course, Coldplay’s […]
i. Lately when I want music with some real TEETH, Pearl Jam hasn’t been doing it for me. I go to the great master Billy Corgan and Smashing Pumpkins’ 1993 sophomore edict Siamese Dream. Now, this album has the rambunctious bite of a quintessential debut effort, as we all know. You might ask, then, why […]
Score: 4.5/10 . Since Ted Leo’s new release is drawing a considerable amount of attention, garnering about a novel-length blurb/interview from Stereogum and extensive hype from other marquee rags, it’s got to be asked at some point: is he as good as Yo La Tengo? Even if you don’t agree with me, you should, partly […]
Now, I say it “sucks,” and yet we’re a country that has to put up a wall to keep people out, so it stands to reason that it doesn’t “suck” as bad as some other places. A more precise way to word my discourse here might be something along the lines of “constant horror from […]
And now once again braced within this horrible climate atrocity (not making a political statement here), I saw fit to write about a different atrocity altogether. It started, actually, brilliantly enough. Also, for anybody who doesn’t know the backstory of Jeff Tweedy, Wilco frontman formerly anchoring the heavily folky Uncle Tupelo of St. Louis, I […]
No score . Again, with all this hurricane action it didn’t seem right to do TOO much pertaining to music, but Neil Young crafts that type of aural experience which is just SO overwhelmingly melancholic and absorptive of feeling that it would seem to allow me to keep the ball moving with this little thing […]
Have you ever noticed how da** ALLUSIVE The Velvet Underground were? Sure, this might be a stupid question. If you’re like me, you’ve read Jeremy Reed’s (yes that really is his name, apparently, and he doubles as a British poet) excellent Waiting for the Man: The Life and Career of Lou Reed [1] so you […]
Score: 8.5/10 . I think if my last review on this site should indicate anything, it’s that sometimes it’s nice for its own sake just to hear any music that isn’t utter processed goop. This being said, if Fotoform has a flaw it’s that they can sometimes come across as TOO bootleg — like they’re […]