Score: 9/10 . There’s a lot that goes on behind making an album. Believe it or not, I’m not talking about how many kids the singer has, or relationship with the label. I’m talking about just the very minor miracle of somebody making it so many more times around the sun all the while carrying … Read more“DD Review: The Shins – Heartworms.”
Score: 8.5/10 . I don’t know anything about The Stooges. That’s the attitude I have. That’s the attitude you have to have watching a thing like this, otherwise you won’t learn anything, whereas if you think you already know everything, you won’t learn anything anyway. Related to this, Jim Jarmusch of Cleveland suburb who also … Read more“DD Review: Gimme Danger.”
Score: 7.5/10 . I review some tracks on this site (Menace Beach’s enchantingly apocalyptic, and enchantingly Britpop “Maybe We’ll Drown” being one) but I primarily review albums, which involves as we know sitting in one space and concentrating on the same thing for 40 minute chunks of time. Now, I have no problem with this—it’s … Read more“DD Review: Fourth Dimension (4D) – Millennial Kingdom Vol. 1.”
* “Nine-minute rock songs don’t rock” Pitchfork review of Shellac – Terraform. [1] Score: 6/10 . The curse of reviewing this album from Soundcloud is that I knew exactly how long the songs were, before they ended. Or was it a blessing? So we’ll call The Long Dark Road primarily a LIVE band. Hmm… well, … Read more“DD Review: The Long Dark Road – The Long Dark Road.”
Score: 7.5/10 . It’s a sad fact, but it’s really just hard to make a great E.D.M. ALBUM, per se. Sure, some seem to have succeeded in amassing a considerable genus of songs, placed within slots, on an LP format — whether it be Aphex Twin, Autechre, Hercules and Love Affair, Sepalcure or the likes, … Read more“DD Review: Logwitch – Trail of the Contortionist.”
Score: 6.5/10 . Hate. Hate is what is undeniable on this earth. I see, I hear it all the time. It’s this random Wilco roadie calling out Ryan Adams as the most full-of-himself individual imaginable, it’s me, the guy writing this view, doing things probably 10 times more hateful, every day. And then I’ll go … Read more“DD Review: Ryan Adams – Prisoner.”
Score: 7.5/10 . Related to my last post about the difference between rock criticism in the ‘90s and that today, I thought about making this review like viewed through the eyes of The Real World decade — would the music stack up to the snobbery of when things were still cutting edge, or would it … Read more“DD Review: Battle Hymns.”
Score: 10/10 . Cloud Nothings have more balls than Real Estate. This, of course, seems obvious, given the components of the situation. After all, they play music that is LOUDER. They always have, and always will. So while I stand by this statement, let me temper it with the following observation: Cloud Nothings on Life … Read more“DD Review: Cloud Nothings – Life without Sound.”
Score: 4 stars/5 . “Maybe We’ll Drown,” the only track currently available from Menace Beach’s upcoming album Lemon Memory, opens with a repeated quarter-note stab at a mellowly amplified electric guitar, done over and over on the same chord. It sounds like something your little seven year old niece or nephew could do. Well, yeah, … Read more“Track Review: Menace Beach – ‘Maybe We’ll Drown’”
Score: 8/10 . Lots of things are deceptive, and deviant from the typical track of music, about Joan Torres, and what they do here with Of the Musical. First of all, Joan Torres (a guy) and his band made a path from Puerto Rico all the way to San Francisco to embark on projects in … Read more“DD Review: Joan Torres’s All is Fused – Of the Musical.”