Kim Gordon No Home Record Matador Records Kim Gordon’s first solo album has effectively distinguished her sound from ‘80s No Wave engineers, Sonic Youth. Despite her years of various artistry since the band’s demise in 2011, being a co-founder is a label that Gordon can’t seem to shake free from. With No Home [...]
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elbow Giants Of All Sizes Polydor Records/Verve Label Group Manchester-based quartet elbow have been crafting songs and soundscapes of such warmth, honesty, and poetry as to be almost beyond description for two decades. Built around both the incredible instrumentation of band members Mark & Craig Potter and [...]
Bodega Shiny New Model What’s Your Rupture? New York-based Bodega’s have released a brand-new EP Shiny New Model. It is a worthy follow-up to the genre-fluid five-piece’s 2018’s Endless Scroll, which was relentlessly quirky and sarcastic. It was characterized as much a punk album as it was “art rock” – that [...]
Lacuna Coil Black Anima Red Music With over 20 years as a powerhouse in the metal scene, eight studio records, and a few lineup changes, Italian gothic metal outfit Lacuna Coil are back with their ninth release,Black Anima. While many bands may start their career with a thunderous and fiery presence only to slowly [...]
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The Avett Brothers Closer Than Together Republic Records It will sound very intense when I state that these poets from North Carolina are making some the most important music of their careers right now. Now, The Avett Brothers have released their 10th album, Closer Than Together,a fifth collaboration with [...]
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Skydiggers Let’s Get Friendship Right Independent Let’s Get Friendship Right , the 15th album by The Skydiggers, is a magnificent album that deals with loss and love. Although dealing with deep and heavy subjects, the end result is an album that is comforting and enlightening. The songs are full of melodies [...]
The Persian Leaps Electrical Living Land Ski Records The Persian Leaps have put something out each fall since 2013, and just as sure as the leaves will change and everything turns pumpkin-spiced,they are back with 2019’s offering, Electrical Living. The opening three tracks are brief but punchy rock songs with [...]
Bedouin Soundclash Mass Easy Star/Mr. Bongo/Sony Canada Jay Malinowski and Eon Sinclair are back with the first Bedouin Soundclash album since 2010’s Light The Horizon. I’m not going to say it was worth the wait – a decade is a long time,after all – but this is certainly a fine album with most of the group’s [...]
Medicine Scarred For Life Drawing Room Records Scarred For Life is an album of covers of 1970’s songs by American noise pop band, Medicine . One look at the front sleeve and the K-Tel-like logo gives you an idea of the origins of the album. No doubt frontman guitarist/keyboardist Brad Laner, like a lot of us [...]
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GospelbeacH Let It Burn Alive Naturalsound Let It Burn, GospelbeacH’s highly-anticipated third album, marks the return of original member Neal Casal. Tragically, on August 26, 2019, Casal tragically left us. Besides the world losing a remarkably talented artist, such a huge loss casts a giant shadow on the music. [...]
Lightning Dust Spectre Western Vinyl After a six-year hiatus, Vancouver-based duo Lightning Dust return with their fourth album, Spectre, a beautiful, haunting, dreamscape of songs. The opening track “Devoted To” is a swirling, ominous,mood-setter for the rest of the album, parts of which had me thinking of fellow [...]
WIVES So Removed City Slang Records So Removed is the first album for WIVES, the four-piece band based in Queens, New York, and it is an impressive debut. Here, they are trying to be gritty and to evoke the spirit of New York City in the 1980s, both musically and lyrically, and they have done their homework. At [...]
L CON Whatever Independent Lisa Conway, also known as L CON, has released a four-song EP called Whatever. This etherealized and otherworldly EP features artists such as Casey MQ (Zaki Ibrahim, TiKa the Creator), Pursuit Grooves (remixes for Planningtorock and the Knife), Geordie Gordon (US Girls), and Evan Gordon [...]
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Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Ghosteen Ghosteen Ltd. Last week, Nick Cave announced the surprise release of Ghosteen through his blog, The Red Hand Files. He ensured its significance was obvious,saying, “The songs on the first album are the children. The songs on the second album are the parents. Ghosteen is a [...]
Steel Panther Heavy Metal Rules Steel Panther Inc. If they hadn’t made it clear already, perhaps the one thing Steel Panther love more than their sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll mantra is heavy metal in the glorious, mega-blockbuster style of the 1980s. The appropriately titled Heavy Metal Rules, the band’s fifth [...]
Moon Duo Stars Are The Light Sacred Bones Moon Duo’s new record Stars Are The Light is a new direction for one of the more talked about psychedelic rock outfits. Coming off the well-received Occult Architecture releases, the new direction I would say here is in the direction of dance/disco, and it is a satisfying [...]
John Lodge B Yond – The Very Best Of BMG I have to say, this is an odd one. John Lodge joined The Moody Blues in 1966 and has remained a member since. During the years, he has released two studio and one live album. He also released a few non album singles. B Yond – The Very Best Of not only takes [...]
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The Roots Things Fall Apart (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) Urban Legends While the younger generation may only know them as the band backing Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, The Roots remain among the strongest all-star hiphop bands in the history of the genre. Perhaps the best example of this, despite having [...]
Various Artists Boyz N The Hood (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Qwest/UMe In 1991, John Singleton directed his first feature film Boyz N The Hood. It was a rare and truthful look into the chaotic world of south-central Los Angeles. The inner-city drama garnered Singleton an Academy Award nomination for Best [...]
KMFDM Paradise Metropolis Records For the past 35 years, German industrial bandKMFDM have been defying rules of genre constraints and proudly giving the finger to authority. With their 21st studio album, Paradise, they have shown no signs of slowing down. In fact, they’re as fired up as ever. Though industrial by [...]
Editor Pick
The Beatles Abbey Road: 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition Apple Corps Ltd./Universal Music For most millennials discovering the Beatles music for the first time, it was through their parent’s CD or, if they were lucky, vinyl collection. Depending on the pressings, (the originals, specifically U.K. versions, [...]
The New Pornographers In The Morse Code Of Brake Lights Concord Records Long-time purveyors of hook-filled, harmony-layered alternative jams, The New Pornographers celebrate their 22nd year in the music business with the release of the poetically titled In the Morse Code of Brake Lights. The cliché [...]
Temples Hot Motion ATO Records The much-coveted musical sweet spot is an elusive one for bands and musicians of all genres and time periods. The almost alchemical confluence of musical inspiration and urgency may end up presenting itself for only a single song, as in the “one hit wonder”, or a single album, while [...]
Tegan And Sara Hey, I’m Just Like You Sire Records An album consisting of songs originally written by Tegan and Sara as teenagers had the potential to be too much of a throwback. Fans may have been expecting lo-fi recordings of songs that have been in a time capsule since the late ‘90s. However, the Canadian [...]
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