Vagabon – Infinite Worlds
We first heard the song “Sharks” courtesy of Brooklyn Magazine in 2016. Watch the video. I think you’ll understand why we loved it. Her eight song album is out now (iTunes) and “Sharks” has become “The Embers.” It’s also louder, with a great stutter of bass and drums. It’s just as captivating. Laetitia Tamko’s aesthetic harkens back to so many artists that it’s hard to...
We Were Promised Jetpacks – Unravelling
Scotland is a hell of place if you love music (and whiskey) without pretense. So many artists, so many radically different sounding artists: Primal Scream, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Arab Strap and Belle & Sebastien. Hell, even the Bay City Rollers. They might share a homeland but that’s about it. We Were Promised Jetpacks–like The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit–are the inheritors of this iconoclastic...
Euston – An Overnight Low
Euston is the first in a three-part series of albums from Maine’s An Overnight Low, each release to be named after U.K train stations (Piccadilly and Waverley are forthcoming), and inspired by main songwriter Chad Walls’ experiences living and traveling throughout the United Kingdom while completing his Doctorate at the University of Manchester. You can hear a mélange of rich influences here (perhaps most notably R.E.M in the opener,...
Beck – Morning Phase
By the own artist’s admission, Morning Phase is very much a ‘companion piece’ to Beck’s stirring 2002 LP Sea Change. True enough, much of the same band returned for this recording, his first in six years- notably Beck’s own father David Campbell, whose string arrangements feature prominently. The album will please fans of Sea Change. This is mellow, slow tempo music tinged with sadness (as on ‘Blue Moon’, where Beck asks, ‘cut me down...
The War On Drugs – Lost In The Dream
Adam Granduciel and his bandmates haven’t just hit a home run with Lost In The Dream, they’ve undoubtedly released one of the best albums of the year. Produced over a two-year period and inspired by Granduciel’s own battles with depression, there is undoubtedly a slight sense of uneasiness that lingers here, but the refashioning of classic and, in particular, 80’s rock, is inspired. No doubt some of the album owes a debt to a certain...
White Lung – Deep Fantasy
Vancouver’s White Lung are back with their third release, Deep Fantasy, a ferocious and frenetic punk rock race that effectively captures the energy of the band’s live work. There’s zero let-up from start to finish as the album sprints in with ten tracks in less than twenty-five minutes, but this is more than frontwoman Mish Way screaming her head off to three cord compositions. White Lung know a catchy hook when they find one...
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