Album Reviews

Chad VanGaalen – Shrink Dust

April 24, 2014

As a newcomer to the land of Chad VanGaalen, Shrink Dust is quite the brazen introduction to the Albertan singer-songwriter’s musical ethos. Known for his imaginative lyrics, full of sci-fi world-building, offbeat preoccupations, and demented wordplay, VanGaalen is on his fifth full-length oddity with the Flemish Eye record label. A compelling cross between OK Computer-era Radiohead and the delicate indie-folk of Daniel Johnston, VanGaalen’s approach feels both richly realized and disarmingly sincere. His latest work is awkwardly arresting from its starting lyric: “Cut off both my hands and threw them in the sand / Watched them swim away from me like a pair of bloody crabs.” The starting track is a mild ditty, however, compared to the howling desperation of its follow-up, the drum-driven “Where Are You?”.  After a bit more experimental dabbling, the album quickly backs away from immediate Radiohead comparisons, blending the countrified with the psychedelic (VanGaalen claims The Flying[...]

Medeski, Martin, & Wood + Nels Cline – Woodstock Sessions Vol. 2

April 23, 2014

Medeski, Martin, & Wood sure like their fair share of jazz guitarists. Recently, they teamed up with Nels Cline, who if you weren’t aware of, is the guitarist for one of the U.S.’ most famous bands, Wilco. On this collaboration, Woodstock Sessions Vol. 2, the group channels a free-flowing, experimental canyon of sound. Take “Doors of Deception,” the opening track. It begins with a series of atonal noises and misaligned percussion that seems to backtrack in on itself. A clear influence here is avant-garde artists John Zorn and John Coltrane. On songs such as “Mezcal” and “Los Blank,” the members flow back into a more tangible composition. “Mezcal” opens with gritty guitar crunches and a smooth, spidery pat-down of percussion. Even though the sound moves into a chaotic tumble and epiphany section, it mimics the effects of what really great tequila can do to a man or woman (see: “Tequila[...]

Neon Trees – Pop Psychology

April 22, 2014

It was just four short years ago that Utah-bred quartet Neon Trees scored its first hit on the mainstream pop charts with “Animal,” and only two years since the group followed that smash with the irresistibly catchy “Everybody Talks.” The new wave pop group consisting of Chris Allen, Elaine Bradley, Branden Campbell, and Tyler Glenn, who are all decidedly of the Mormon faith, have thrown out some of their religion’s strict ordinances against drinking and sex when creating their latest album Pop Psychology. Lead singer Tyler Glenn’s recent revelation that he is gay, should also go against some of his religious teachings, but promises for an evermore-personal collection of songs lyrically. Pop Psychology‘s first single, the very charming “Sleeping With A Friend,” maintains the group’s sonic presence of peppy pop tracks with a slight retro feel. Even the lyrics serve as the definition of the perfect “friends with benefits” type[...]

Pharoahe Monch – PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

April 18, 2014

Pharoahe Monch’s PTSD provides a nice contrast from the usual super lyrical rap album. Monch has mostly been known for his lyrical dexterity and his technical rap skill, and as expected, that is all on display with this theme album. There is great variety in his flows throughout, and on a variety of songs Monch busts out tongue-twisting internal rhyme schemes similar to something MF DOOM would use. Continuing on themes Monch developed in his previous LP W.A.R. (We Are Renegades), this album paints the picture of an artist who has battled with the music industry, and the aftermath of doing so. He talks of drug addiction, mental health, and even goes as far as to draw parallels between the Trayvon Martin incident and his plight in the music scene. Intermittently between tracks a computerized voice will talk to Monch, guiding us through the steps in his therapy. Each song provides a conceptualized[...]

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[...]