Score: 7.5/10 . The self-referentiality “knock,” or critique, in music criticism is a funny thing — it can go both ways. The simplest forms of expression, too, like punk rock, are also the most ballsy — so the ensuing daring to unabashedly be simple, like say Green Day on “Say Goodbye,” has a funny way […]
Score: 1.5/10 . The sad part is, not only is this album exactly like a Sonic Youth album, but I can even name, per the specific swatches of pathetic rock retrospection Thurston Moore is limp-wristedly employing here, the exact Sonic Youth songs he’s ripping off. There’s the cheesy emotional build of “Rain on Tin,” there’s […]
Score: 9/10 . Elephant Stone, a Canadian indie act which derives its name from a beautiful Stone Roses song, is a group of musicians which garners a lot of my respect. I first heard of them through Burger Records, this prodigal menace to society out of LA (it’s a record store in Fullerton, to be […]
Scores: 1/10; 9.5/10 . Let’s be clear about something: when Blitzen Trapper first came out, they were TOTALLY original. In fact, they were even too weird for me, but da** did they have some hipster appeal, with the pitchfork “Best New Music” slot and an official endorsement from Stephen Malkmus (or as official as Stephen […]
Score: 6/10 . This whole review can, more or less, be unfurled in terms of comparisons. Louisville, Kentucky’s White Reaper is a band making rock and roll which we might as well call “organic,” which has generously made their whole album available on youtube, and which also commendably introduces every sort of keyed instrument somewhere […]
Score: 8/10 . I feel like any discussion of Spoon will automatically boil down to one simultaneously of style, for style’s own sake. Sure enough, on “Hot Thoughts” which acts as new LP’s titled track opener, I don’t hear any glaring STRUCTURAL unorthodoxies, but I do hear everything stylistically from androgynous synth-pop to slight heavy […]
Score: 7.5/10 . I have to be careful what I ask for, I guess. I once made the knock on The JMC’s album Automatic that it was a little too “automatic”: like as in all songs got put through the same leather-cool sneering culture cooker, and then produced through the same leaf blower-sound apparatus. So […]