Score: 7/10 . The story of Saba Lou warrants mention for its very weirdness alone: this is the music of the nine-year-old female progeny of once-vaunted indie-funk giant King Khan. Now, at first it kinda rubbed me the wrong way, me being a little adverse to the whole concept of child phenoms perhaps through overexposure […]

Score: 5.5/10 Bo Diddley: “I’m from South America.” Other conversation participant: “What part?” Bo Diddley: “South Texas.” “The girls like me” Bo Diddley . First of all, I knew this guy wasn’t from the Midwest, because he (apparently) doesn’t sadistically hate Dead Poets Society (I’m guessing that’s where this band’s name comes from, as in […]

Score: 8.5/10 . It’s ironic that, in the year when critics finally realize how lame the Arcade Fire is, Liars have made what within their catalogue most resembles, by far, an album of that very band. Like their trusty competitors from north up the coast The New Pornographers, the Liars are at this time facing […]

Score: 7.5/10 . I found out about the Wonderhills, a “five-piece acoustic outfit” [1] which calls themselves “pop” but doesn’t seem to have a single digital rudiment to their music, because they were doing a show or three with my beloved northern-Indiana Matchsellers (the equally bluegrass-oriented, whereas the Wonderhills hail from “Southern Indiana”). Right away […]

Score: 7/10 . That Painted Ruins would fall at least slightly short of the unforgettable pantheon tension of Veckatimest and Shields, you kinda figured. That it would also be highly postmodern (a ridiculously broad term, obviously, but in a sense encapsulating of “pastiche” meaning a blank pasting together of past influences), you kinda figured. That […]

Score: 5.5/10 . At some point, it became that any headway made in rock and roll was going to have to encapsulate an element of male frustration, and the extent to which females have a romantic advantage over them, in life. What I’m thinking of, particularly, is Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs for the […]

Score: 6.5/10 . No Wikipedia page yet exists in dedication to the debut solo album of the Melvins drummer, but from the Rolling Stone interview (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/melvins-drummer-dale-crover-on-his-debut-solo-album-w485159), one can assume with some pomposity that Crover actually plays all the instruments on the album (guitar, bass, sporadic synth and of course drums), somewhat like Stevie Wonder used […]

Score: 9/10 . In a way it’s ironic that I’m reviewing a band called “The Gods Themselves” RIGHT NOW because I literally JUST came across this news thread of Liam Gallagher saying on the record that like U2 has never done anything for rock and roll, or something like that. Wow, ya know… it seems […]

Score: 8/10 . It might seem that record labels aren’t that important — that if expression is truly organic, it will materialize for better or worse, no matter the medium. In a way, I think that, though it would be a hypocrisy considering that I’ve just spent the day bit**ing at Sub Pop on Facebook, […]

Score: 9.5/10 . As any reader of this site will observe, I’ve been on a huge “influences” kick lately — basically allotting value per a system similar to the ethic given in Cadence Weapon’s slogan that in good music “The influences peel off like stickers on a notebook.” Well, it’s the really good music that […]