Sufjan Stevens The Ascension Asthmatic Kitty It is hard to believe, but it has been five years since Sufjan Stevens released a ‘conventional’ studio album. That doesn’t mean he has not been busy, because he has. The Ascension is a return to [...]
Will Butler Generations Merge Records Will Butler is a busy man. It’s been five years since the release of his solo debut album Policy (2015), but in between he also released Friday Night (2016), an energetic live album, and as a member of [...]
Deftones Ohms Reprise Four years ago, Deftones released Gore, the most drastic departure from their known alternative brand of metal. Now, the band has reunited with long-time producer, Terry Date, who produced the first four Deftones’ records [...]
Bendrix Littleton Deep Dark South NNA Tapes Initially, many music fans didn’t realize what kind of a gap was left when late great Sparklehorse, aka Mark Linkous, left us prematurely. These days that left-of-center nether space between roots, [...]
Big Sugar Hemi-Vision (Deluxe Edition) Universal Music A quarter of a century on from its original release, the platinum-selling Hemi-Vision gets the big “deluxe” treatment. This reissue comes complete with newly-released lost takes, acoustic [...]
Télépopmusik Everybody Breaks The Line Warm Music So, you think electro pop music has nothing substantial to offer? Have you forgotten LCD Soundsystem, or any of the ‘thinking’ French electro bands, like Télépopmusik for example? The duo of [...]
Squirrel Nut Zippers Lost Songs Of Doc Souchon Southern Broadcasting Jimbo Mathus and his crew continue to convert and subvert vintage jazz on this set, “inspired by all the mysterious characters from the history of New Orleans jazz music”. [...]
Magnolia Bayou Strange Place Independent Hailing from Southern Mississippi, Magnolia Bayou have released their sophomore album, Strange Place. The full-length album follows their 2018 self-titled debut and a series of singles released throughout [...]
Yusuf/Cat Stevens Tea For The Tillerman² Universal Music Half a century after Cat Stevens released Tea for the Tillerman, we find Yusuf taking a retrospective look at his own breakthrough album. Fittingly enough, the concept for the album came [...]
Ian Wayne Risking Illness Whatever’s Clever Getting over sad times sometimes requires sad music. Still, for such music to work you need to not only feel it in yourself as an artist, but also to be able to transform it into music that [...]
Mines Falls Mines Falls Independent Saying that something sounds ‘cinematic’ can mean 1001 things to 1001 different people. Still, most would agree, that a rock sound that leads a line from the melodic side of Pink Floyd to Elbow and Radiohead [...]
Tobin Sprout Empty Horses Fire Records Empty Horses, the seventh solo album from Tobin Sprout, takes a stylistic detour from what we are used to by someone regarded as a prince of fuzz-laden indie rock. With his latest record, we are treated to [...]
Ace Frehley Origins Vol. 2 eOne “We’ve got a little surprise for you tonight! We’re gonna turn the microphone over to Ace Frehley,” Paul Stanley famously declared on Kiss’ Shock Me (Live), released in 1977. Since then, Frehley has suffered [...]
Daniel Romano’s Outfit How Ill Thy World Is Ordered You’ve Changed Records There are few artists as prolific in this day and age as Daniel Romano, and his latest record doesn’t disappoint. Featuring The Outfit, How Ill Thy World Is [...]
Vision Eternel For Farewell Of Nostalgia Somewhere Cold Records For Farewell Of Nostalgia is the latest release by Montréal’s Vision Eternel. A concept EP about, as he says, the emotional ”devastation of falling in love too quickly” and the [...]
The Death Wheelers Divine Filth RidingEasy Records If you’ve never heard of The Death Wheelers, they are a motley band of Canadian misfits who play a unique brand of doomy surf-rock. The band’s latest release, Divine Filth, is loaded with [...]
Marylin Manson We Are Chaos Loma Vista Recordings Coming off a pair of acclaimed records, Marilyn Manson is in the midst of a mid-career renascence as he returns with We Are Chaos. The album, written and produced by Shooter Jennings, sees Manson [...]
Blue Öyster Cult The Symbol Remains Frontiers Music Blue Öyster Cult is back–and in a big way! The Symbol Remains is their first studio album since 2001’s Curse Of The Hidden Mirror. Since then, the band have toured consistently, and have [...]
Marshall Holland Paper Airplane Mystery Lawn This fall saw the release of an excellent collection of songs by the San Francisco Bay Area artist, Marshall Holland. Paper Airplane is Holland’s first album of singer-songwriter baroque power pop [...]
Half Moon Run The Covideo Sessions Crystal Math/Glassnote Records Half Moon Run is at the top of their game. Formed in Montreal in 2009, they released the Juno Award-winning album A Blemish In The Great Light in 2019, easily their best music so [...]
Soundwalk Collective With Patti Smith Peradam Bella Union Peradam is the fourth release from Soundwalk Collective with Patti Smith. In 2019, this collaboration explored the works of poets Antonin Artaud on The Peyote Dance, and Arthur Rimbaud [...]
Social Gravy A Different Kind Independent If you have any grievances with quality pop/rock akin to Coldplay or say, even Dawes, you may freely skip this review. You see, Belarusian musician Vee Bordukov & British producer/songwriter Brad [...]
Oh Susanna Sleepy Little Sailor (Deluxe Edition) MVKA Deception can be an art, and sometimes, that is for the best. This is particularly true of those artists/musicians that seemingly don’t come up with music that is strikingly new, but somehow, [...]
Fame On Fire LEVELS Hopeless Records Fame On Fire has consistently tested the genre waters with each project release they have set their minds to, showing the world they are more than your typical multi-genre band. So far, they have succeeded in [...]
