If the year 2012 conditioned music fans to anything — other than the fact that “Call Me Maybe” is inescapable, and the only way to mount a true offense is to just give into its charms already — it’s the cultural inevitability that is the re-formed mid-’90s lineup of Guided By Voices, and the Pavlovian sense that, every four to six months, GBV will be releasing another record, so pull on your Bee Thousand t-shirt and prepare your mind for […]
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Os Mutantes, Fool Metal Jack: Album Review
Consistency is an appealing trait in an album. Versatility is, of course, encouraged, but the best records have a common unifying thread linking one song to the next. Nudge too far in one direction, and your record is disjointed, schizophrenic; too far in the other and it’s staid and unexciting, and some jack-off music critic is tut-tutting your artistic vision. Reformed Brazilian psych-rock band Os Mutantes’s new record, Fool Metal Jack, threatens to careen off the rails several times. Perhaps […]
Frank Turner, Tape Deck Heart: Album Review
If English singer-songwriter Frank Turner’s heart is a tape deck, it’s a severely used one; it warps the tape in your favorite cassette, and everything sounds scratchy and worn, cloaked in a layer of tell-tale hiss. It doesn’t matter, though, because it’s got one of your favorite songs lurking deep within its recesses, and if Guided By Voices have taught us anything, it’s that a great song is a great song, period. Frank Turner’s new album, on the other hand, […]
Snoop Lion, Reincarnated: Album Review
Snoop Dogg? Snoop Lion? Whatever the hell you call him, he has a record out.
Phoenix, Bankrupt! : Album Review
“List-o-mania, my testes, see ’em grow… like-a-rhi, like-a-rhino!” These are, the internet tells me, definitely not the lyrics to Phoenix’s breakthrough hit, “Lisztomania”. I never actually thought that the Parisian indie-rockers were narrating a peppy, Kafka-esque tale about growing rhinoceros balls, mind you — but the absurdist image never failed to make me chuckle, and anyway, why futz with something that was probably way cooler in my brain? (Actual lyrics: “Think less, but see it grow; like a riot, like […]
Shuggie Otis, Inspiration Information + Wings Of Love: Album Review
A gifted, prodigiously talented soul/funk recluse, Shuggie Otis’s music certainly deserves to be canonized; all the accepted pieces of pop-culture folklore are there, from the Rolling Stones sideman offer to the eventual artistic blackout, and so it stands to reason that when Otis’s music finally reaches the masses, it will be transcendent. Which, as it turns out, is a bit of a foolish way to think; there’s no easier way to shatter transcendence than to expect it. In 2013, we’ve […]
The Shouting Matches, Grownass Man: Album Review
Musical anonymity can be a funny thing. Justin Vernon, the neo-folk mastermind behind Bon Iver, isn’t going completely incognito by stepping out with a few friends to record a loose-limbed garage-blues record, but it’s something of a musical disguise nevertheless; his ethereal, crooning falsetto replaced with a gnarled, expressive wail, one could easily mistake his vocals on The Shouting Matches’ Grownass Man for the work of… of anyone else, really. Take your pick. But that’s not to say that Grownass […]
Ghostface Killah, Twelve Reasons to Die: Album Review
A grisly, retro-fitted, blood-spattered, cinematic Tarantino pastiche for music nerds and hip-hop heads everywhere, Ghostface Killah’s enthralling Twelve Reasons to Die isn’t merely the emcee’s finest hour since 2006’s career-high Fishscale; it’s also, assuming it gets the respect it deserves, poised to be hip-hop’s most prominent excursion into the grindhouse, and the true breakthrough of producer Adrian Younge. Or perhaps “composer” is the better word. Twelve Reasons to Die is the result of a miraculous and rare synergy between sound […]
Iron & Wine, Ghost on Ghost: Album Review
It’s interesting that being a fan of Iron & Wine isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for enjoying (or not enjoying, for that matter) Sam Beam’s latest album, Ghost on Ghost. Artistic evolution (and devolution) happens all the time — how different could Ghost on Ghost be? Well, for longtime fans of the hirsute folkie, the answer is: very. Beam — who performs as Iron & Wine — made his reputation on a host of recordings that caused the rock-crit elite to […]
Lil’ Wayne, I Am Not A Human Being II: Spin Cycle
Introduction: Lil’ Wayne is almost cool. For a few brief, shining moments, Lil’ Wayne’s latest album flirts with being cool. Like, legitimately cool from a musical standpoint, not merely cool in the sense that Lil’ Wayne fans tend to cling to that ludicrous period of time where people were calling him the greatest rapper alive. “IANAHB” opens the record with a flurry of ominous piano chords; it seems as though it’s setting the stage for a dark, piano-laced beat, but […]
Walk Off the Earth, R.E.V.O.: Spin Cycle
Album Reviews / Indie Rock / music / New Releases / pop culture / Pop Music / rock music / Spin Cycle
In several ways, the scrappy members of Walk Off the Earth are bucking the stereotypes. Consider that if this band name rings a bell, it’s likely for one of two reasons: 1. You saw that viral video of Walk Off the Earth covering “Somebody That I Used To Know” on a single guitar, or 2. You are a member of Walk Off the Earth. That video’s their claim to popular fame, and yet there’s no accusing them of being a […]
