PATRICK WATSON @ MASSEY HALL, TORONTO JUNE 15, 2018 I was, going into this concert, admittedly ignorant about Patrick Watson and the sound of the band behind him. Even attempting to place him in a genre seemed perplexing to some of his fans and [...]
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones While We’re At It Big Rig Records It is interesting for me that this is the second band this month that I have chosen to review that found the largest part of its fame in the 1990s, a decade now famous for being [...]
JACK WHITE @ BUDWEISER STAGE, TORONTO JUNE 9, 2018 Jack White and his band of four came out strong last night to the largest audience on the tour thus far. Without making any eye contact with the crowd, White picked up his guitar and immediately [...]
Dave Matthews Band Come Tomorrow RCA Records There is little, at this point in their long and storied careers, that the Dave Matthews Band do in terms of breaking new ground. Since launching themselves into the collective music consciousness in [...]
Snail Mail Lush Matador Maryland-born Lindsey Jordan, the lead-singer and creative engine behind Snail Mail, must have had cool parents. Maybe an older sibling that was into grunge. Having only been born in 1999 herself, she has clearly been [...]
Neko Case Hell-On Anti Records Call it hyperbole, call it what you will, but Neko Case is a national treasure. Though likely made known through her work with the New Pornographers, it has been her work as a solo artist that has set Case apart [...]
Black Thought Streams of Thought, Vol. 1 Human Re Sources If you drop Black Thought’s name (born Tariq Trotter) anywhere within most musical circles, the most common descriptor that follows is “underrated”. The most important thing that you’ll [...]
Courtney Barnett Tell Me How You Really Feel Mom+Pop Records There is something infectious about Courtney Barnett, something immediately arresting or even downright lovable about the authentically laissez-faire way that she seems to approach [...]
Parquet Courts Wide Awake! Rough Trade Records New York based, genre-resistant foursome Parquet Courts are, with Wide Awake!, not only releasing their fifth album in eight years, a rate that maybe only Ty Segall could top, but perhaps also [...]
Margaret Glaspy @ The Great Hall (Longboat Hall), Toronto May 15, 2018 Longboat Hall could not have possibly been a better venue for this event; oozing history, the circular basement room allowed for an intimate closeness with the performer that [...]
IF HAPPINESS WON’T LIVE WITH ME… REMEMBERING SCOTT HUTCHISON OF FRIGHTENED RABBIT 2013 was a very difficult year. Professionally, I found my workplace to be mired in acrimony and political rhetoric; personally, my wife and I had struggles that [...]
Iceage Beyondless Escho Beyondless begins in truly memorable form, with the fire and ferocity of “Hurrah”, a song about our cultural immersion in violence, war, and ultimately death. It is a well-written diatribe against our seeming inner wiring [...]
Jon Hopkins Singularity Domino Records Singularity picks up very similarly to how 2013’s Immunity left off, with renowned composer and DJ Jon Hopkins painstakingly creating music that feels crafted directly from the innermost layers of human [...]
Leon Bridges Good Thing Columbia Records Make no mistake, soulful rhythm & blues singer Leon Bridges is by no means the finished article, and on his sophomore album he has decided to take the type of risks often characterized by young and [...]
LAYIN’ TRACKS FOR A BUNCH OF FLOOR KIDS A CONVERSATION WITH KID KOALA Kid Koala is a ground-breaking scratch DJ with as impressive a creative resume as is imaginable. In our interview this past week, I also came to know him to be open, [...]
Speedy Ortiz Twerp Verse Carpark Records Grunge-infused, indie-rock foursome Speedy Ortiz are a bit of an enigma, and not just in the attempt to place them in a genre that comes somewhere close to describing them. Sonically, they revel in [...]
Kid Koala Floor Kids (Original Video Game Soundtrack) Arts & Crafts It is no surprise, given his hard-to-contain talent and countless sources of artistic inspiration, that Eric San (aka Kid Koala) would get involved in the creation of a [...]
Blossoms Cool Like You Universal Music/EMI Remember the Brighton-based foursome The Kooks? They were literally the soundtrack to the summer of 2006 with several singles taken from their debut Inside In/Inside Out. The British public loved them [...]
TAMING THE LION A CONVERSATION WITH RUN MAGGIE RUN Run Maggie Run is in as interesting and productive a place as any band could hope for. Having spent 2017 honing their live sound and performing their debut album, self-titled album the Hamilton, [...]
Thievery Corporation Treasures From The Temple ESL Music American duo Rob Garza and Eric Hilton have been making genre-defying music as Thievery Corporation since the mid 1990s and have been doing so in the spotlight since 2005’s The Cosmic [...]
A Perfect Circle Eat The Elephant BMG The world has undergone almost immeasurable changes in the years between the releases of A Perfect Circle’s third and fourth albums. 14 years is easily quantifiable, but any attempt to qualify the scale of [...]
Lord Huron Vide Noir Republic Records Lord Huron not only survived “dreaded second album syndrome”, they seemed to have perfected their sound with their sophomore release, taking the alt-folk rock feel of their debut and raising it to all new [...]
Bishop Briggs Church Of Scars Island Records An album three years in the making, Church of Scars is the official full-length debut of Scottish-born, Los Angeles-based singer Bishop Briggs, who performs under the name of her hometown in [...]
Say Sue Me Where We Were Together Damnably There is something decidedly timeless about surf-rock, especially when it melds with the classic washed-out vocals of its genre cousin shoe-gaze; in general, it is a sound that would fit as easily on a [...]
