Album Reviews

Woods – With Light and with Love

April 17, 2014

With Light and with Love, as its creators must have intended, is light and lovely. Yet for an album offering semi-straightforward psychedelia that seems tamer than Tame Impala, there is a fair amount of sonic playfulness. Joy jumps from each note. Woods, a folk rock quartet based in Brooklyn, are an amiable act, cozy and accessible even as they break into glorious five minute jam sessions by track three. The sixties pop revivalism they engage in throughout their eighth record is consistently pleasant. Band founder Jeremy Earl’s high vocals are cheery and effervescent, tiptoeing over his companions’ guitars with gleeful abandon. Though With Light and with Love may close with an eerie collapse into decaying sounds, overall Woods feel like happiness on record. Even with ambiguous lyrical nods to uncertainty, death (which “brings us close”), and time’s passage, Woods never descend into dread. Their work is sweet and summery, with musical nods to[...]

Japanther – Instant Money Magic

April 16, 2014

“Do it–don’t try it” could be Japanther’s motto. The duo, consisting of Matt Reilly and Ian Vanek, have proven they can keep creating fresh, innovative material again and again. Their approach is just as avant-garde as it is rooted in plain old experimentation. Since forming in 2001 at art-haven Pratt Institute (the place reeks of hard work), they’ve performed at the Whitney Biennial in 2006 and always included an artful touch to their live shows, whether it be inviting a multimedia artist to collaborate with them or putting on a performance art piece. For a group that’s been around the block once or twice, it’s impressive to see their latest release, Instant Money Magic, can be just as brazen as their “coming-out-of-the-closet” albums such as Master Of Pigeons or Don’t Trust Anyone Over 30. The same elements are there–churning, pumping guitar rhythms and stomping drums–but the content has stripped down. It’s disheveled in a good[...]

Ratking – So It Goes

April 9, 2014

Let’s be honest–New York City is still a main hub of culture when it comes to the arts, but it’s changing rapidly. A constant topic of discussion is gentrification, basically, in more simple terms, the ‘neighborhood is changing.’ Defining a ‘New York’ artist sound is nearly impossible, especially in contemporary hip-hop. One can recall an older, east-coast sound, like Wu-Tang or Public Enemy, with  more aggressive, higher beats. Ratking, a NYC-based trio including Wiki, Hak, and their Bushwick-born producer Sporting Life, creates a new New York palette on their latest release So It Goes. Even though the main thread of the album is based upon New York City life, it seems to be more focused on the challenges and shifts between youth and adulthood, seen in the opening song titled “*” that goes on about “Graduated what’s next, well everybody’s askin’/ college, well what do you have planned?” over a[...]

Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks – Enter the Slasher House

April 8, 2014

After more than a decade together as one of the most prolific and unorthodox psychedelic-pop indie bands, Animal Collective’s founding member Avey Tare has decided to break away and form an alternative trio side-project called Slasher Flicks. Unlike many of the less than stellar attempts to start a band anew, Tare’s new musical experimentation is strikingly catchy and stylistically cohesive. It all starts off on “Little Fang,” a sleek psych-funk jam that compels listeners to “remember that your gifts are your game” all on top of rhythmic keyboard strokes and airy vocals. Thankfully, Enter the Slasher House downplays Avey Tare’s tendency to blow instrumental arrangements out of proportion with extraneous layers of sound as was the case on the last Animal Collective album. Stripping the songs down helped this trio, which includes former Dirty Projector member Angel Deradoorian, especially on the trippy “Strange Colores,” a track that finds the perfect balance of[...]

Cloud Nothings – Here and Nowhere Else

April 3, 2014

Cloud Nothings‘ face-crunching fourth album is a fearless, assertive follow-up to 2012’s Attack on Memory. Oscillating between a chaotic rush of existential howls and throaty but tuneful melodies, Here and Nowhere Else pounds its presence out through furious snare slams and clamorous cymbal crashes. For better or worse, Cloud Nothings are as foggy and nihilistic as their namesake implies. “You’re born / you’re gone,” cries frontman Dylan Baldi repeatedly on “No Thoughts,” succinctly whittling the human condition down to its coming and going. As in the songs of similarly-minded peers Titus Andronicus, however, the absurdity and cruelty of existence makes for some pretty addictive punk rock.  Here and Nowhere Else largely consists of blurry, anti-pop assaults of pop song length. Baldi is a dynamic vocalist, sliding from screams to Strokes-style singing with relentless charisma. Even as he complains that “life gets boring, it fades away,” he seems impassioned enough to annihilate the ennui he fears. On[...]

Thievery Corporation – Saudade

April 2, 2014

Rob Garza and Eric Hilton are busy guys. Since forming Thievery Corporation in the late ’90’s, they’ve produced eleven studio albums, with the release of Saudade as their twelfth. Normally when one thinks of Thievery Corporation, they are associated with the acid-jazz movement and over-dubbed relaxing reggae. For the duo, things are shifting with this new release. What drew them together is the Brazilian-born genres of music that can be seen here in purely classical form on Saudade. After straying and exploring several elements of the electronic world, as Garza says, ‘it’s us coming full circle from electronic music back to something organic.’  The Portugese word ‘saudade’ means “a longing or something or someone that is lost, a contented melancholy, or, simply, the presence of an absence.” This is an appropriate titling for the group and the musical shift they are exploring. Sometimes, in order to get rid of that feeling of loneliness,[...]

Mac DeMarco – Salad Days

April 1, 2014

NOTE: This review was written immediately after returning from a Mac DeMarco concert in Cleveland, in which he and his touring bassist licked me in the face (I gave Mac a Valentine and asked for a kiss in return. He obliged me.) and then I talked to him and essentially stared at him as he smoked outside the venue. So what I’m trying to get at is that this may not be the most objective review. But does objectivity have any place in rock criticism anyway? Mac DeMarco has had a busy year. The Montreal-born, Brooklyn-inhabiting indie rock prankster (who has described his sound as “jizz jazz,” a mix of surf rock textures, jangle pop guitar tones, and soft-spoken crooning) found himself an indie sensation after releasing debut album 2, working with Tyler, the Creator, and developing a beloved live act, known to feature spontaneous nudity and bizarre, profane covers of[...]

S Carey – Range of Light

April 1, 2014

S. Carey – better known as Sean Carey, the drummer for Bon Iver – knows how to stay on the top of his solo game. After surprisingly captivating us with single after single of ethereal beauty from his debut effort All We Grow, the soft voiced drummer has returned in 2014 with the transcendent Range of Light. The instrumentalist turned solo singer-songwriter has only continued to perfect his craft with each new song release, supplying us with even sleeker orchestral compilations and fresh environmentally inspired jams. And, yes – he’s done it again. Building across a sparse, spacey experimental apparatus, album opener “Glass/Film” provides the record’s whole ambience within its confines, which is to say, it shows a certain intentional complexity in its orchestration that Carey always strives to add. This follows straight into “Creaking,” another track piggybacking on Carey’s attention to detail, especially in the way it creates a complex soundscape revolving around water droplets,[...]

Johnny Cash – Out Amoung The Stars

March 28, 2014

It’s hard to believe that over a decade after his death, Johnny Cash is still giving us new, baritone-riddled insights to chew on. Or maybe it’s not, given the many stories that seem necessary to accompany a life held by such a prolific personality. In his fourth posthumous release, Out Among The Stars endows listeners with just a few more narratives, realizations, and introspective absurdities from a man who rambled along the volatile path of addiction, god, flailing integrity, and poetic emotion that so characteristically dubbed him country’s humble outlaw—the Man in Black.  Recorded in the early ‘80s and shelved by his then-label Columbia Records, the twelve-tracked compilation features two originals (“Call Your Mother” and “I Came To Believe”) nestled comfortably among—though slightly overshadowed by—a series of covers and duets that only seem to bolster Cash’s steady knack for reinventing and transforming the songs of others into refined works of his own.[...]

Waka Flocka Flame – Re-up Mixtape

March 27, 2014

Waka Flocka goes hard in the motherfuckin tape on his new mix, Re-Up, an 11 track compilation with solid production and clever collaborations. His much-anticipated album, Flockaveli 2, doesn’t drop til later this year, and this mix will carry you through til it’s release. Fellow Atlanta rapper Young Scooter is featured on the 808 Mafia produced second track, “Cook Jug,” and has one of the catchier hooks on the mix. Both “Lottery” and “Ain’t No Problems” have that signature Waka sound, and the latter has verses from oddly charismatic ATL rapper Young Thug and Judo. “Word to the Wise,” an impeccably produced track by up and coming rapper-turned-producer Metro Boomin, is one of the strongest on the tape, and it’s worth mentioning that Metro is only 19 years old. He can’t get into the clubs that play his music, but that’s what house parties, like the one in “Real N!gga Love,” are for. Featuring the OG of[...]

The Hold Steady – Teeth Dreams

March 27, 2014

The Hold Steady, as their name suggests, have always been consistent. Each record contains the same classic rock bravado, the same gritty tales of skaters and punks, druggies and barflies, “kids at shows” and their “scene leaders.” Jesus is found and lost, beverages consumed and vomited, girls hooked up with then abandoned. And yet, through all the recycled imagery, frontman Craig Finn keeps his storytelling gripping and sympathetic, caring deeply for the life-hungry characters he creates as they binge-and-purge their way through the city’s slimy little sins. Teeth Dreams, a more straightforward affair than some of their records, is no deviation from the Hold Steady’s concentrated vision. Although Finn has stated that the album’s title was inspired by a David Foster Wallace passage, Jack Kerouac still serves as his main literary muse. Soaked in booze and blood, the songs lift themselves up from the barroom floor to reach toward the flickering[...]

Liars – Mess

March 26, 2014

The Brooklyn-based threesome Liars is hard to peg when it comes to classifying, or relaying their catalogue of music. After moving between New Jersey, Los Angeles, and Berlin, finally settling down in New York City, it is apparent their music morphs alongside them like a nomadic passenger. Liars’ seventh studio album, Mess, is glam-electronic at its finest, boasting erotic, dark synths, and deadpan vocals that make me wonder whether these guys are night walkers (see: Game Of Thrones). If the title of the album doesn’t already give off a strong hint of the chaotic, musical swirl that follows, the album art might, looking like something out of artist Jim Drain’s anthropomorphic, woven sculpture collection.  “Mask Maker” begins with lyrics sung through a vocal changer that say “smell my socks/ eat my face off/ take my face off/ I like your face” that remind me of what a crazed man or woman on bath[...]

Future Islands – Singles

March 25, 2014

If you’ve never heard of the synth-rock trio Future Islands, then take a moment to watch their unorthodox yet strangely entertaining performance on the Late Show with David Letterman a couple of weeks ago. That should give you a good idea of the group’s emotional attachment to each performance, particularly the passion lead singer Samuel T. Herring seems to have. Following the success of 2011’s On the Water, the trio went back to the drawing board and came up with the concept of making another album that was rhythmically cohesive while focusing on their fiery beats and catchy hooks. Luckily for them, all of those preconceived thoughts fully embody their fourth studio album, Singles.  Right away, the track listing foreshadows a theme of optimism throughout its collection with songs such as “Spirit,” “Sun in the Morning,” and “Doves” to name a few. The opening track to Singles, “Seasons (Waiting on You),” is a combination of everything Future Islands is sonically: breezy[...]

The War On Drugs – Lost In The Dream

March 20, 2014

If one were to switch out the article ‘the’ with ‘a’ in The War On Drugs’ new album title, Lost In The Dream, one would find a stark and subtle difference between interpretations. Lost in ‘a’ dream connotes a superfluous, vague experience, like, ‘oh yeah, I was like, all swirling up in that dream man, totally bonkers.’ Lost in ‘the’ dream is specific, melancholy. Why would anyone feel lost in ‘the dream’, which I’m getting to here, is the dream that each individual pursues? From what I gather of Adam Granduciel is that the guy is rather OCD. After doing a little background research, having not been a die-hard fan of the group already, I found that this album took to him like a leech. Post-breakup, like many of us know, can turn on an obsessive creative switch to deviate from any lingering feelings or emotions. I’m not saying that this album[...]