Score: 10/10 . There’s really nothing I could say to describe how great this hourlong video is, this is more of just a promotion of it than a description. One thing that jumps out however is the effect that “All Those Yesterdays” has on the vid, or rather, the effect that the production has on … Read more“DD Review: Pearl Jam – Single Video Theory.”
Score: 7/10 . I’ve heard “funk rock” done badly: lack of one-beat chutzpah, excessive moaning and wailing on the part of the vocalist. Dawn to Dusk definitely isn’t that. Jim Wellman is a veteran of the craft who’s nuanced out a centered, balanced journey of rhythm and jazz which unfortunately, through occasional excessive ambition, becomes … Read more“DD Review: Jim Wellman – Dawn to Dusk.”
Score: 7/10 . I just started subscribing to NME, and as much as I love it for the unabated music-centered zeal and the relative lowness of advertising, sometimes I just get this feeling of being surrounded by things overwhelmingly BRITISH. A Head Full of Dreams is just that — like Colorado’s high and dry Big … Read more“DD Review: Coldplay – A Head Full of Dreams.”
Score: 5/10 . We have upon us now a new musical act, Add Agency, and an 11-song album, Gemstone Radar — fixings with a vaguely hip-hop feel to them. When you attempt to google the “record label,” “Stratking Records,” nothing comes up, and there’s no wikipedia blurb on them. The first two songs on the … Read more“DD Review: Add Agency – Gemstone Radar.”
Score: 8/10 . Violins sound strikingly like Neko Case’s voice. Or is it the other way around? Along these lines, the sonic layering mastery on iTunes Live from Montreal is no surprise to any A.C. Newman fan, and I really hope you are one! I remember getting a “You’re just aces” (cheeky) from the old-as-sin … Read more“DD Review: A.C. Newman – iTunes Live from Montreal.”
Score: 1 star/5 . Oh, imprisonment within happiness. Now, I‘ve never been one to imply that such a thing is worse than imprisonment within pain. But this was before I saw the foolishly monochromatic cutesy-video for “Love Won’t Make You Cry,” in which the term “love” is used so many times as to render it … Read more“DD Review: Bitter’s Kiss – ‘Love Won’t Make You Cry’ (single/video)”
Score: 5.5/10 . It’s a funny thing about receiving artist bios before diagramming a project like this. Sometimes, as on “The Rope,” it would have been better to embark upon the mission without outside knowledge, because the sort of high-stakes outpouring taking place can really be a revelation — a unique, haunting take on real human failure. … Read more“DD Review: Bitter’s Kiss – Bitter’s Kiss.”
Score: 7/10 . In respecting the new album by “No Wave”/blues-rock veteran Tomas Doncker, it’s impossible not to ruminate over the cover shot a bit. Ryan Adams Gold this is not; Bruce Springsteen Human Touch this is not — as melodically effective as those projects ended up being, Doncker’s present muse screams public outcry, awareness. … Read more“DD Review: Tomas Doncker – The Mess We Made.”
Score: 7.5/10 . Pitchfork is all about reviewing reissues, placing on tenuous ground of course the idea of good “new” music still ever coming out, so anyway I thought I’d try my hand at it. This is, after all, not just ANY album. There’s no pu**y-footing track one opener about it, it’s not a beast … Read more“DD Review: Led Zeppelin – Presence / Deluxe Edition.”
Score: 8/10 Reviewing an Everclear album is a volatile thing, in a way, because Art Alexakis has such a bone to pick with the world. Black is the New Black opens, after a bevy of decapitating guitar riffs sounding, not oddly, but unexpectedly, sort of like 311 covering early era Collective Soul, with the lines … Read more“DD Review: Everclear – Black is the New Black.”