Latest Posts

Father John Misty’s “Bored in the U.S.A.”

November 7, 2014

Earlier this week, former Fleet Foxes drummer (and former Batavia, New York resident) Josh Tillman, continuing to work under his most recent nom de plume, Father John Misty, released the first single from his upcoming album, I Love You, Honeybear. The song is called “Bored in the U.S.A.” and Tillman first performed it on Letterman – perhaps not un-coincidentally, the night before Election Day – so that it flooded Facebook feeds and music journalism sites like this one on the very morning that many Americans might have been thinking about the state of their country and their place (or lack of place) within it. It was probably a calculated move on Tillman’s part but that does leave the question of what exactly he might have been trying to say by way of that calculation. For that, it might be helpful to take a look at the song that was almost[...]

Zak Ward – That’s What You Get

October 20, 2014

Like a lot of people, I’ve always had a tendency to associate the music I listen to with a certain season. Sometimes there are objective reasons for this, certain sounds do traditionally pair well with particular times of the year, and sometimes it can be entirely subjective, such as when you only relate an album to a certain month because it just happens to be the first time you listened to it. Zak Ward’s new EP, That’s What You Get, released just this past weekend, would seem to qualify on both fronts as it’s an album that easily evokes the feeling of an early fall and happens to have arrived just as we’ve probably finished seeing 60 degrees in Western New York until 2015.  (The cover of the album might also help to inspire this autumnal connotative value with what looks to be a canvas brushed with a palette of[...]

Foxygen’s …And Star Power

October 10, 2014

Back in the before times (in the long, long ago) I wrote an article about Foxygen’s second album, which was audaciously (and a bit pretentiously) titled We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic. The basic idea there was that Foxygen was channeling the Ghosts of 60’s-Music Past, through an extremely self-aware present-day filter. The songs on that album sounded less like the legions of bands that have only mimicked that sound in the past 50 years and more like a band that had somehow discovered a crate of unused A-sides from 1969, covered them, and basically begged you to ask: “Doesn’t this guy sound a lot like Mick Jagger?” Part of that effect had to do with how Foxygen seemingly refused to discriminate when it came to sounding like any particular band from that era. They’d shift from the Beatles to Dylan to the Stones to Bowie[...]

Spoon’s They Want My Soul

August 4, 2014

After reading a few advance reviews of Spoon’s new album, it’s become apparent that one of the main storylines writers have latched onto is how this is a relatively difficult album to write about. This seems to be for two reasons. First, because Spoon has so consistently been churning out excellent music over the past 15 years, there really isn’t much to say other than, “it’s another great Spoon album.” Second, Spoon has so consistently been churning out excellent music over the past 15 years, that so consistently sounds like nothing other than itself, (a sound which is notoriously difficult to describe – there are not that many adjectives akin to “sparse,” there are only so many ways to describe guitars that sound “angular”), there really isn’t much to say other than, “it sounds like a Spoon album.” Both of those things are most certainly true. This album sounds amazing,[...]

Vampire Weekend and Contra

June 6, 2014

Last year we ran an article about Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires of the City. I basically just went song-by-song and tried to explain some of the more potentially obscure references and how I thought the songs fit into the larger thematic arc of the album. You can still read that piece, here, on the old buffaBLOG (from the “before times” in the “long, long ago.”) That article was pretty well received and some people said that it was nice to have some extra context in which to enjoy the songs, even if most of it was just pure speculation and interpretation on my part. So, in anticipation of Vampire Weekend’s upcoming show at the Outer Harbor on Monday, I’ve made some comments below on the rest of the band’s catalog, which includes all of the songs from their self-titled debut album and follow-up, Contra. Pick and choose from your favorite songs below[...]

Conor Oberst’s Upside Down Mountain

May 16, 2014

There’s a mountain in southern France called the Pic de Bugarach. It’s a bit of a geological anomaly because rock samples taken from its peak have actually proven to be older than samples taken from lower elevations, earning it the nickname “Upside Down Mountain.” Geologists have come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, involving “thrust faults” and “horizontal compression,” which I can only vaguely pretend to understand. If you Google Pic de Bugarach, however, you’ll find that others have come up with far more scientifically dubious (but more interesting!) explanations involving aliens, spaceships, and the apocalypse. It shouldn’t be terribly surprising then that Conor Oberst has titled his new album after the nickname for a mountain worshiped by esoteric New Agers. Ever since Bright Eyes released Cassadaga in 2007, Oberst has shown significant interest in spirituality. The lead tracks on the last two Bright Eyes Albums featured cryptic[...]

The Hold Steady’s First Four Albums (and Their Last Two)

April 7, 2014

The Hold Steady have been playing music for just over 10 years now.  They started out in 2004 with Almost Killed Me and since then, they’ve released another five full-length albums, including this year’s Teeth Dreams. Popular consensus seems to be that their last two albums, Teeth Dreams and 2010’s Heaven is Whenever, were a significant departure from the standard of quality the band had established over its first four albums, which, in retrospect, now appear to have been part of a classic, near-flawless 5-year run. Figuring out “what happened” to the Hold Steady isn’t easy and opinions will vary. Surely, some people may even enjoy the last two albums as much, or even more, than their earlier work.  The music, to a casual listener, likely doesn’t sound terribly different. The Hold Steady have always played guitar-driven music with a classic rock bent, and with Craig Finn’s easily identifiable half-talking/half-singing delivery[...]