Champ? Might be time to hang those gloves up.
Spin Cycle
Skinny Puppy, Weapon: Album Review
At times harkening back to the yesteryear of Skinny Puppy while at other times moving boldly into the future, Weapon is a visceral slab of electronic goodness that is hands down the best album they have released since “reforming”. Probably the most aggressive 21st Century offering from Skinny Puppy as well, Weapon is so in-your-face (And so surprising a release considering HanDover barely came out two years ago) that you’d be wise to invest in concealer to cover up the […]
Guided By Voices, English Little League: Album Review
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 […]
Iggy and the Stooges, Ready to Die: Album Review
In their initial run, The Stooges crafted an unholy trinity of proto-punk rock. The raw energy of their self-titled debut (1969), Fun House (1970), and Raw Power (1973) are still highly regarded as being among the most influential rock albums of all time. Iggy of course went on to an acclaimed solo career that had its ups and downs throughout the ensuing decades. Following a long string of reunion shows that began in 2003, the original lineup (augmented by Mike […]
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.
Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, Love Has Come for You: Album Review
Perusing the concert listings a few months ago, a listing for “Steve Martin & Edie Brickell” jumped out at me. “That Steve Martin? That Edie Brickell?” It all seemed so bizarre. My father later expressed interest in going to the show, as Martin’s newfound musical career apparently gets a great deal of play on XM/Sirius’ bluegrass station. I bought the tickets out of curiosity. Last week, I got a taste of what we might be in for when that performance […]
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 […]
will.i.am, #willpower : Album Review
One might be tempted to think that the hashtag in will.i.am’s newest album title is a hollow attempt to call reference to the Twitter-friendly zeitgeist of the time and thereby posture itself as something relevant and connected to our culture while masking a core of general emptiness and mediocrity. One would be right to do so. The will.i.am empire has risen as much from his marketing saavy as his musical talent (honestly, probably more so), and #willpower smacks of something […]
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 […]
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Mosquito : Album Review
‘I think that I’m bigger than the sound’ Karen O proclaimed on ‘Cheated Hearts,’ from 2006’s sophomore effort, Show Your Bones. Seven years later, on their fourth album, O, Nick Zinner and Brian Chase give their all on making good on that statement. It’s been 10 years since the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s blitz-krieged the early aught’s with their version of neo-punk. In the years that followed the band has now released three additional albums – all of them receiving generally glowing […]
