Halfway through 2013, we’ve come to an interesting impasse: moreso than the last several years, the music of this year has been largely awesome. I don’t say this to suggest that I’m one of those curmudgeonly sorts that thinks new music blows; it’s just, we’ve been in a bit of a lull. Much of 2012 was boring on the album front, and 2011 was only marginally better. And yet, here we are at unlucky ’13, and I’ve already doled out […]
Posts tagged "Iron & Wine"
I Let the Groove Get in, Felt it Right There: The Halftime Report Best Music of 2013 So Far (Mike B.’s Take)
Keeping up with the rate of quality new music is like trying to be in love with 100 women at once: it’ll be an overdose of bliss, but with each one needing an equal slice of your heart, some jadedness may occur.
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 […]
Spin Cycle: The Tallest Man On Earth, There’s No Leaving Now
Beset by not-entirely-off-base Dylan comparisons since his debut dropped, Swedish folkie Kristian Matsson (stage name: The Tallest Man On Earth) is operating under the small-ish genre umbrella of indie folk, a lovely little haven where performers live and die by the strength of their songs, where rugged baritones and rambling napkin poetry are the order of the day, where boredom is uncomfortably easy to attain if you’re not careful. Fortunately for Matsson, he’s got the goods – “the goods”, in […]
Spin Cycle: Of Monsters and Men’s “My Head is an Animal”
As I hinted when reviewing Of Monsters and Men’s Into the Woods EP a couple of months ago, the pop and indie universes seem to be on a collision course. This isn’t an entirely new phenomenon – remember all of the hullabaloo surrounding Modest Mouse embracing Top 40 with “Float On” back in ’03? – but we’ve reached a point, culturally, where the dividing line is almost nonexistent. Arcade Fire and Bon Iver have Grammys now, and Gotye and Florence + The Machine are […]
bLISTerd Presents: Brittany’s Top 11 Albums of 2011
Okay, I’ll admit it- I didn’t listen to a lot of music released this year. I can’t really explain why- I think partially it was because I was listening to some of the albums released last year still (because Sufjan Stevens’ Age of Adz is still my favorite from 2010), and the other reason is probably because I tend to procrastinate when it comes to buying/listening to new albums anyway. For example: Bon Iver’s self-titled release (which is on the […]
New Release Report 1/25/11: Kwelity??
The grain of new releases this week is the best it’s been so far in 2011, but that’s not saying a hell of a lot. We’re still a month or so away from an A-list superstar release, and while you don’t have to be an A-list artist to make a good release (actually, most people would argue the opposite), you still have to bring money in to succeed at business, right? No album so far this year has sold more […]