Album Reviews

clipping. – CLPPNG

June 13, 2014

Before I start this review I just wanna touch on one thing real quick. The whole phenomenon of bands/music groups,  cutting out vowels in song/album/artist names or replacing them with Vs, is so played out. I can’t stand the name of this album, just make it a self-titled. It would’ve been cool like two years ago, but now it looks like the name of a random soundcloud artist. I digress. Clipping. is a trio consisting of rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers Wiliam Hutson and Jonathan Snipes. Hutson and Snipes both hold industrial-electronic roots with other bands and projects, and they craft the noisey in-your-face music that the band is known for. Diggs provides the raw, violent imagery to accompany the music, and he truly is a great technical rapper. Their Facebook page sums up their sound as “music for the club you wish you hadn’t gone to, the car you don’t[...]

The Antlers – Familiars

June 12, 2014

Since Hospice emerged as a narrative record of tremendous emotional force in 2009, The Antlers have consistently defined themselves through their weightiness. There is no hip posturing, no casual cleverness, and very little pop sensibility to the music they spin forth from what Isaac Brock might call “the dark center of the universe.” Although Burst Apart, The Antlers’ more contained follow-up to Hospice, found the band exploring tight song structures and stepping away from the glorious concept album fullness of their previous release, Familiars, the act’s fifth record, returns to the musical looseness of Hospice while applying a vague conceptual framework. Familiars lacks the immediate thrust and devastating intimacy of Hospice’s tales of cancer, regret, and trauma. It also lacks Burst Apart‘s comparative accessibility. And yet Familiars is as gorgeous a flutter of genuine feeling as one can wish for from Brooklyn’s most cathartic conveyors of human desperation. Frontman Peter Silberman’s vocals remain extraordinary[...]

First Aid Kit – Stay Gold

June 11, 2014

First Aid Kit, composed of the elven-queens Klara and Johanna Soderberg, hit an Internet nerve after they placed their cover of hit Fleet Foxes song “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” on YouTube back in the year of 2008. Shortly before that, they had already re-recorded their first EP, Drunken Trees, with the help of their school-friend’s father, Karin Dreijer Andersson, who is one half of The Knife. At this milestone, the young ladies were the age of fourteen years old. Fourteen is a pinnacle year, especially from a developmental standpoint. You’ve survived the castrating year of thirteen of endless questioning and doubt and latched onto a form, an outlet–whether that’s singing, sports, writing, etc. You see glimmers of your passion. You swim this sea without the poisoned expectation of achievement. Perhaps, this is the best blessing. Continuing on this vein of relinquished expectations is a good way to be. First Aid[...]

Fucked Up – Glass Boys

June 10, 2014

In their new release, Glass Boys, Canadian hardcore punk outfit Fucked Up demonstrates their knack for tasteful anthemic punk rock, albeit in a more modest way than usual. This time around, the band looked to more self-reflective and moody elements to join their usual philosophically charged aggression. One thing listeners need to know before listening to Glass Boys is that, conceptually speaking, it is not anything close to David Comes to Life, their complex, punk rock opera that explores a love story through multiple perspectives and meta-narratives. In comparison, this record is the proverbial sidekick or henchman murmuring, “Yeah, what he said!,” echoing the previous record’s ideas of frustration with apprehension against society’s ills. However, this album should be praised through its particular use of song structure and instrumentation, which give it a brooding yet deeply energetic style. Whereas most hardcore punk music thrives off of bursts of high energy[...]

Glass Animals – Zaba

June 10, 2014

It was just this past April that the promising Oxford-based quartet Glass Animals cemented themselves a tight little niche in the psychedelic indie-pop market with their beaming EP Gooey. Now they’ve returned with their debut album, Zaba, to prove that beyond the Radiohead reminiscent grooves or the minimalist pop production, they are in fact an inimitable, contemporary pop creation. It’s only fitting that they hit the mark right out of the gate even with a ton of pressure riding on this up-and-coming group’s premiere effort. Glass Animals’ sonically forecasting Gooey EP brought about one of the quartet’s most unrestrained singles in “Gooey,” again found on Zaba. Oozing basslines all on top of Dave Bayley’s smooth, sleek falsettos make it one of their most authentic feeling cuts to date. The track isn’t without its fair share of sexual innuendos as unorthodox uses of pet names get that across, especially when referencing Winnie the[...]

50 Cent – Animal Ambition

June 6, 2014

Animal Ambition works when 50 Cent understands that he’s worth 140 millions dollars. Sometimes 50 gets caught up with his life back when he was fresh off of being shot 9 times, straight off of the streets, and all the other details that made him one of the best crossover gangsta rappers of all time. Now though, 50 hasn’t been on the streets for a long time. In the same way that Jay-Z still gets grief for his coke selling subject matter 20 years after the fact, 50’s strengths and weaknesses are on this album are dependent on whether he’s living in the past or the present. In “Hold On,” we see 50 attempt one of his sing-songy catchy hooks that took him to the top of the music industry 11 years ago. It’s not going to be the last time he does it on this album, and it’s probably[...]

Parquet Courts – Sunbathing Animal

June 5, 2014

Parquet Courts might sound like punk slackers, barely capable of playing their instruments let alone organizing actual songs, but on closer examination such a judgment wouldn’t be quite accurate. In an interview with the Washington Post, the band reveal an astute understanding of classical music and the blues, as well as an orchestral background for co-lead singer/guitarist Andrew Savage. Seemingly scrappy and thrown-together, Sunbathing Animal, the Brooklyn act’s third record, is full of intention. If Parquet Courts come across as The Modern Lovers under relationship strain or Pavement with a few cracks in the concrete, it’s only because that’s what they want to be. It’s an odd aesthetic: feigned incompetence reaching toward sublimity. Parquet Courts’ lyrics attempt to appear as tossed off as the music, but the wit and breadth of their references unveil the band’s underlying intelligence. On the title track, Savage unloads aphorisms and opaque observations like a semi-automatic[...]

SBTRKT – Transitions

June 4, 2014

SBTRKT had the right idea when he split his latest LP, Transitions, into three phases. Each two track pairing plays off the thematic tones of the one before. The latest of the three came out today and it signals a darker, ominous twist from this formerly upbeat and dance-heavy producer (think of “Wildfire ft. Little Dragon” and “Hold On ft. Jessie Ware”). The final phase is a follow-up to the first two song sets, especially “Kyoto,” a track that bounces on fuzzy downbeats and a muted, smooth minor melody swirling in and out. “Highs and Lows” comes in with wild scoops of synthesizer and punchy downbeats. A tropical trill spins in and out of transition. Starry, punchy, fluid twinkling noises weave their way through the sparse noise. Second on the release is “Stifle,” a track that turns down the volume on intensity. An asymmetrical percussion features a drum downbeat, clap,[...]

Ben Frost – A U R O R A

June 3, 2014

With his new album, A U R O R A, electronic musician/composer Ben Frost sheds a new light on the genre, merging experimental minimalism with a modern rock sensibility. Finding a middle ground between artificial sound and live instrumentation, the record stands alone as a piece of art while providing a crossover sound sure to attract punk rockers and trance listeners alike. Mixing the best elements of both electronic and rock music is not an easy task, and few artists have managed to do so without delving into the unforgiveable realm of dubstep. Frost chooses to use mostly electronic instruments with anthemic rock song structures, but does so in a way that sounds natural. The result is something is best described as electronic post-rock, with melancholy buildups into climatic chaos. Frost aligns a different noise or instrument to their post-rock equivalent, sounding as if Explosions in The Sky were being[...]

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Only Run

June 3, 2014

“How can I open up?” asks Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s Alec Ounsworth on “As Always”- the opening track of the band’s latest release. He seems to have answered his own question, as the song- a cosmic cascade of phaser synths and Ounsworth’s signature howl- introduces the soaring, synthetic atmosphere of Only Run– the band’s first LP since 2011’s Hysterical. CYHSY has come a long way since their humble beginnings as a DIY-oriented indie band, but the overly electronic Only Run seems to lack that idiosyncratic energy that made them so buzzworthy in the first place. 2012 marked the departure of guitarist/keyboardist Robbie Guertin and bassist Tyler Sargent, which could offer explanation to such a wild reinvention of their sound. Lineup changes aside, the new album lacks substance, and left my appetite for classic Clap Your Hands hooks completely intact. However, Only Run does not come without its merits. “Impossible[...]

Meyhem Lauren & Buckwild – Silk Pyramids

May 30, 2014

“So Queens that you could feel me, so dope that you could deal me.” That’s what NYC rapper Meyhem Lauren asserts on the opener of his latest album Silk Pyramids with producer Buckwild, and that’s the script that he sticks to for the length of this impressive project. Lauren doesn’t break any ground with his subject matter on this, but he does a great job rapping about rap stuff. Action Bronson, a past collaborator with Lauren, assists him on the album’s intro, and he really kills it. The beat Buckwild crafts is straight up Bronsolino’s alley, a female vocal loop that sounds like it’d fit right in with with Bronson’s “9.24.11” and “9.24.13” series. Action always comes through with the ridiculous braggadocio bars. He provides the album’s first rewindable moment with the line “Cross your motherfuckin ass in basketball wearing sandals.” Murked. One of the album highlights for me, and I[...]

The Orwells – Disgraceland

May 29, 2014

After getting mocked on Letterman for their dozy on-stage theatrics, The Orwells seem poised for the big time with their second LP. “Who Needs You” is already making its radio rotation rounds with gusto, and the Pixies punch of its rockabilly-garage-punk-Fourth-of-July-parading makes for a snappy firecracker of a single. For fans of the sound, Disgraceland serves up eleven tracks in the same needle-prodded vein. Disgraceland revels in the raunchy, undignified, balls-out rock its title embraces. Its scuzzy, drugged, sometimes psychotically violent party anthems are out to restore a jagged dangerousness to rock n’ roll. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, guitarist Matt O’Keefe complains about the “safe and soft” tendencies of synthesizer-dominated modern rock. The Orwells blatantly pursue an old school classic rock set-up, infusing the standard model with wicked rebel energy. From the beginning, the record is hungry and horny, teeth sharpened and bared, eager to devour. “Southern[...]

Hundred Waters – The Moon Rang Like A Bell

May 28, 2014

I am afraid that my fingers will have kelp on them from my time spent in the sea. The humid tendrils of wind make me crave a fresh, cold drink. Immersed in the salty water, I hear an echo of a glorious sound, coming closer with each vibration. After I raise my head above water to breathe in air, I am relaxed. Floridian quintet Hundred Waters’ music can be described as Aphrodite music. Singer Nicole Miglis’ voice is a luminescent, deep cry, soaring above the production that Trayer Tryon, Paul Giese, Zach Tetreault, and Allen Scott compose from found sounds and precise electronic instruments. Their first self-titled album, Hundred Waters LP, was released on the Elestial label in 2012 and heard by Skrillex, who immediately signed them to his label OWSLA. Say what you want about Skrillex, the guy has taste. Two years have flown by and their latest release,[...]

The Roots – …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin

May 27, 2014

For a legendary hip-hop band with nearly three decades of legendary albums, it is only natural for The Roots to eventually hit a wall in terms of creative output. With mostly underwhelming production style, their new record …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin is not much more than a hurried concept album with vague moments of continuity. A good representative for the album is the track “Never,” a dreary jazz beat accompanied by Patty Crash’s shrill voice. The song follows a gradual buildup as the instruments become busier, only to be cut off quickly before reaching any sort of climax. This is the atmosphere for most of the album, the music and verses sounding just below the brink of their full potential. With an average song length of 2-3 minutes, it appears there is not enough time given to address the album’s complex issues of teenage angst in an unprivileged[...]

Sam Smith – In the Lonely Hour

May 27, 2014

Anyone unfamiliar with the rather ordinary sounding musician Sam Smith may notice him from his featured vocals in Naughty Boy’s chart topping “La La La” or Disclosure’s club smash “Latch.” Now he faces the challenging task of matching the quality and success of his guest appearances with his solo effort, In the Lonely Hour. Luckily for many fans, Smith takes that challenge as motivation as he attempts to prove his newfound success was well deserved. Like most other UK imports with a hit single or two in the bag, Smith needs his debut to become something more than just an “OK” album if he has any hope of surviving the brutal music industry. Due to his previous collaborative success, it comes as no surprise his record label set him up with top producers Fraser T Smith, Eg White, and Two Inch Punch to help perfect his individual sound. Even with[...]