Pinegrove Return (And, Yes, You Should Care)
Fifteen minutes into their sold-out show at Cambridge, MA’s cozy venue the Sinclair (official capacity 525 but tonight inching closer to 600), it becomes apparent that Pinegrove are going to … Continue reading
“This Is America” – Childish Gambino
If you are someone who perceives pop music as a cultural barometer, you will never forget where you were the first time you saw Childish Gambino’s “This is America.” It’s not unlike … Continue reading
Sleep Well Beast – The National – album review
At some point in the last five years, the National became indie rock royalty. There was no formal ceremony per se, no keys to the executive washroom granted, but an … Continue reading
DAMN. – Kendrick Lamar – album review
Damn, indeed. Damn, if 2015 doesn’t seem like the good ol’ days. You know, when Kendrick Lamar’s last album, To Pimp a Butterfly, stood defiantly, arms crossed, neck deep in America’s murky, … Continue reading
Hot Thoughts – Spoon – album review
On “Finer Feelings” from 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon front man Britt Daniel postulated a remedy for all that ailed him: “Sometimes I think that I’ll find a … Continue reading
I See You – The xx – album review
A couple years ago Spotify divulged that “Intro” from the xx’s self-titled debut was the song most often found on user playlists whose titles contained the word “sex.” It came … Continue reading
Blonde – Frank Ocean – album review
“Mind over matter is magic” confides Frank Ocean “I do magic.” It’s the sort of clever, hyperbolized turn of phrase employed by storytellers to heighten the tension within their tales. … Continue reading
A Moon Shaped Pool – Radiohead – album review
We live in intolerable times. Radiohead’s songs have been telling us as much for decades: “Everything is broken.” “I’ll take a quiet life/ A handshake of carbon monoxide.” “Women and children … Continue reading
The Life of Pablo – Kanye West – album review
“Tell me, all/ Who here can relate?” asks Kanye West during a particularly outlandish, mildly inchoate freestyle rap on The Life of Pablo about personal liberation, trysts with models, and anal bleaching; the … Continue reading
Blackstar – David Bowie – album review
This wasn’t supposed to be a eulogy. But before I could finish the review of Blackstar, David Bowie, aged 69, passed away after an 18-month long battle with liver cancer, making this strange … Continue reading
To Pimp A Butterfly – Kendrick Lamar – album review
To Pimp A Butterfly is a marvel of bi-polarity, a force field of simultaneous attraction and repulsion. It invites you to come in, grab a seat, and have a meaningful … Continue reading
Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit – Courtney Barnett – album review
Courtney Barnett estimates she’s had twenty panic attacks since entering adulthood. It’s the sort of detail that’s acutely incongruous with her music, a wry, lazy blend of punk, folk, and … Continue reading
Viet Cong – Viet Cong – album review
It’s difficult when the expectations placed on one band are the unfulfilled promises of another. Calgary quartet Viet Cong will always be known as the group that arose from the … Continue reading
Best Music of 2014: #5-1
10-6 | 5-1 5) Spoon “Do You” — They Want My Soul Lead single “Do You” from Spoon’s They Want My Soul is as shiny and polished as a newly-minted … Continue reading
Best Music of 2014: #10-6
Some years, music coalesces into a grander movement or reaches a watershed level of excellence, signifying general agreement that holy shit, this was a really great year. 2014 was not … Continue reading
Black Messiah – D’Angelo and the Vanguard – album review
Let’s start with the obvious, people — something about D’Angelo’s music makes clothes just fall off of folks. Although his long-awaited third album is about far more than sex, you’ve … Continue reading
They Want My Soul – Spoon – album review
“What’s a soul, daddy?” my daughter asked quite unexpectedly one evening. She’s six years old, so I considered my options carefully before answering. The invisible essence of a living entity? … Continue reading
Ghost Stories – Coldplay – album review
It’s become impossible to underestimate Coldplay. That’s no longer hyperbole, just plain fact — and one that even the band themselves wishes weren’t true. They’ve released five consecutive multi-platinum albums, each … Continue reading
Here and Nowhere Else – Cloud Nothings – album review
Here and Nowhere Else is a swift, brutal act of emotional transference — thirty minutes of rampant aggression that imparts distress upon the listener as surely as it provided catharsis … Continue reading
Atlas – Real Estate – album review
Everything you need to know about Real Estate can be found in the first twelve minutes of Atlas, a three song sequence that reads like an ad in the personals: … Continue reading
St. Vincent – St. Vincent – album review
“Here’s my report from the edge” grits Annie Clark through blood red lips and perfect teeth, but as precarious as her announcement sounds, it’s an odd way to characterize the … Continue reading
Beyoncé – BEYONCÉ – album review
“Let me sit this asssssssssssss on ya“ might be the moment it finally sinks in. Mrs. Knowles is all done with being the Good Girl, thank you very much. It’s … Continue reading
White Light/White Heat (45th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) – The Velvet Underground – album review
The Velvet Underground’s incendiary proto-punk seemed so outside the plane of music’s reality in 1968 that Lou Reed’s throwaway line “You don’t look like Martha and the Vandellas” from White … Continue reading
Reflektor – Arcade Fire – album review
There’s a moment when it almost all comes together — a guy sporting a ridiculously giant Win Butler mask is kicked off stage by the real McCoy just seconds before … Continue reading
Uncanney Valley – The Dismemberment Plan – album review
One of the best reasons to attend a Dismemberment Plan show during the band’s 2011 reunion tour occurred seconds before the second chorus to “You Are Invited” — a delirious … Continue reading
EP2 – FKA twigs – album review
Buried on FKA twigs’ Tumblr page, a grainy, unassuming photo captures the twenty-five-year-old Brit deep in thought, flanked by a row of vibrato pedals, an iPad, a bottle of coconut … Continue reading
The Worse Things Get… – Neko Case – album review
“In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer” wrote author and absurdist philosopher Albert Camus in 1952. Paralyzed by existential indecision, … Continue reading
6 Feet Beneath The Moon – King Krule – album review
“How can someone so young sing words so sad?” Morrissey once wondered, but having lived it, he already knew the answer. It’s the same question often asked of nineteen-year-old Archy … Continue reading
Paracosm – Washed Out – album review
Some of the most memorable places aren’t even real. Ask any child; he’ll tell you all about Narnia, Middle-earth, or that galaxy far, far away. All are paracosms by definition … Continue reading
Magna Carta, Holy Grail – Jay Z – album review
Quality control has plagued Jay Z for a decade now, but rarely has the hype behind his product so vastly exceeded its actual worth. Hova’s twelfth and blandest album, Magna … Continue reading
Yeezus – Kanye West – album review
John Lennon touched a nerve when he famously claimed the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus,” but at least no one could accuse him of replacing his surname with “the … Continue reading
…Like Clockwork – Queens of the Stone Age – album review
Josh Homme has filled out. Two decades of Herculean-level imbibing, consuming, and partaking will do that to a rock star — even the most untameable, red-haired Lotharios eventually become bulkier, … Continue reading
Random Access Memories – Daft Punk – album review
Are machines imparted with the human characteristics of their creators, or are we destined to adopt theirs? People are prone to exchanging pleasantries with Siri, calling the Internet bad names … Continue reading
Silence Yourself – Savages – album review
All art has archetypes — those idealized forms to which all others must be compared. In the realm of post-punk bands, the definitive templates — Joy Division, Wire, PiL, and … Continue reading
Bankrupt! – Phoenix – album review
The first clue should have been the fruit. Thomas Mars and Laurent Brancowitz, one half of indie rock band Phoenix, chose Bankrupt!’s vibrant, oddly generic cover image after significant deliberation, admitting … Continue reading
Overgrown – James Blake – album review
James Blake is not unique in his predilection for bending, chopping, and fracturing melodies until all that remains is a sonic mosaic of meticulously arranged, stained-glass shards. He is also … Continue reading
Shaking The Habitual – The Knife – album review
During the Great Northern War pandemic of the early 18th century, the ghoulish, bird-like masks of Eastern European plague doctors became synonymous with death. Although appropriately macabre, their long, horned … Continue reading
Comedown Machine – The Strokes – album review
For all the don’t-give-a-fuck dishevelment and dingy basement brilliance of their early records, the Strokes have always possessed a certain air of suppressed refinement. All five members attended elite prep … Continue reading
The Next Day – David Bowie – album review
Happy birthday. 58! Isn’t it time you got a proper job? — Ricky Gervais, 42, comedian I have a proper job — David Bowie, rock god Word-for-word, that’s actual 2005 … Continue reading
Amok – Atoms For Peace – album review
Even the best of illusions can backfire. The song “Analyse” from Thom Yorke’s solo debut The Eraser (2006) played during the credits of The Prestige, Christopher Nolan’s underrated film featuring two rival … Continue reading
m b v – My Bloody Valentine – album review
Around 3:35 pm on Saturday, February 2nd, a lot of folks cancelled their evening plans. My Bloody Valentine, the legendary shoegaze alt-rock giants who released 1991’s seminal work Loveless (an … Continue reading
Fade – Yo La Tengo – album review
Seven years ago, I bought a t-shirt with a Venn diagram on it — the left circle read “Music I Like,” the right circle read “Music You Like,” and the … Continue reading
Turn On The Bright Lights (10th Anniversary Edition) – Interpol – album review
Rarely has time’s passage been so unkind to an artist’s reputation. Depending on your philosophy about how art is perceived in its context, Interpol’s Turn on the Bright Lights is … Continue reading
good kid, m.A.A.d. city – Kendrick Lamar – album review
On its cover, good kid, m.A.A.d. city is actually subtitled “a short film by Kendrick Lamar.” In many ways, it is. More than just writing a collection of great songs, … Continue reading
Shields – Grizzly Bear – album review
Plain and simple, critics adore Grizzly Bear. The Brooklyn foursome draw from a bevy of treasured older influences (Beach Boys, Nick Drake, the Band, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash) and … Continue reading
Coexist – The xx – album review
Appreciating the xx can be as much an exercise in restraint as is their songwriting. Their 2009 self-titled debut won the U.K.’s Mercury Prize and topped several critics’ best of … Continue reading
Centipede Hz – Animal Collective – album review
Music has always been closely tied to the notion of transcendence. From Gregorian chanting to South African shamanistic trance dance to ecstasy-fueled Western rave culture, music from all over the … Continue reading
Mature Themes – Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – album review
“You sunk my battleship!” To the typical American kid in the late 70’s and early 80’s, that phrase had special meaning; it’s the indelible tagline for the 1977 version of … Continue reading
The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do – Fiona Apple – album review
You only need two images of Fiona Apple to understand the tension behind her fourth, and most personal, album. One is the photo that accompanies the iTunes landing page that’s … Continue reading
Celebration Rock – Japandroids – album review
On “The Nights of Wine and Roses” Brian King asks “Don’t we have anything to live for? Well, of course we do/ But ’til they come true, we’re drinking.” So … Continue reading
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