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 […]
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. […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Score: 7.5/10 Sometimes artists have “mantra songs,” so to speak, songs that for them are like a warmup, songs that cause them no anxiety to perform, and get them into the physical act of doing music, loosen them up. I’ve seen this with my own two eyes with Califone and “Michigan Girls” — Tim Rutilli […]
Score: 3.5/5 stars . “No one man should have all that power” was Kanye’s ode on the strange and beautiful statement of blackness “Power,” made even stranger by the recent publication of his plans to run for presidency. Roommate, on Make Like, sound like a band afraid of having too much power. Of course, they are […]
Score: 8/10 “A beach house is a house on or near a beach, sometimes used as a vacation or second home for people who commute to the house on weekends or during vacation periods.” – wikipedia.org . Vaudeville ’70’s Linda Rondstadt influence meets glam rock meets Clipse/Dope Head crack rap all on the first track […]
Man, mama, I been nappin’ too long, I ain’t even know this slumgullion was out. Five songs in, I remember why I was sleeping in the first place. Seeing as John Fogerty is hardly miring in obscurity these days, a couple topical points make themselves prominent given the obnoxiously good-ol’-boy praising tone of liner note […]
God damn Passion Pit, ya know. They’re just having so much fun making another Passion Pit album, it’s impossible to hate them. They even seem to KNOW that they’re like Phoenix but not QUITE as good, and this makes them even more endearing. “Droll” is an operative word I’d use. While it’s been publicized that […]