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Titus Andronicus – The Most Lamentable Tragedy

July 30, 2015 Brendan O'Connor

Believe it or not, if you were at the Titus Andronicus show at the Tralf Music Hall in 2013, you were among the first people in the world to hear tracks off of the band’s latest effort, The Most Lamentable Tragedy. While two years seems like a stretch from the first announcement of an album and its release date, after hearing it all the way through for the first time, it all makes a bit more sense now. This album is not only the band’s most ambitious release to date, but their most uncompromising, mentally engaging, and liveliest. The Jersey outfit really outdid themselves on this one, a tough task after some of their past work, crafting a 29 song, 93 minute “rock opera” of sorts, cited by front man Patrick Stickles as having underlying meanings rooted in manic depression and how it has affected him throughout his life. These[...]

Pitbull – Dale

July 22, 2015 Joe Cardina

You hear those three ascending piano notes. You stop what you’re doing and turn your full attention to the wondrous arpeggiation that just tongued your earholes. You hear the same three notes, descend back to where they came from. You start to see spots. You start to sweat. You’re not sure if you’ve just defecated yourself. But you don’t care either way. “Mr. Worldwide” is the first phrase you hear– and then you’re there. You’ve hit nirvana. Then your internet connection cuts out. You spew the following spell of words that garners a small crowd outside of your apartment window– “What the fuck! I just had my moment of inner-most peace and YOU ruined it, Time Warner. YOU are responsible for this sham of a wifi connection that just stopped me from streaming the last three minutes and forty-four seconds of ‘Piensas (Dile la Verdad)’ feat. Gente De Zona, which[...]

Wilco – Star Wars

July 20, 2015 Justin Kloczko

On “Cold Slope,” the 9th song off Wilco’s new album, Star Wars, Jeff Tweedy sings, “Some say you’re never really there, but you still take up space.” That line could be an indictment of the band over the past several years: touring endlessly but producing fewer albums. After a decade of hiring-and-firing, Tweedy and co. have been in cruise control with the same lineup for over 10 years now. What kind of band is Wilco today? They have mostly abandoned their experimental skin (which was really credited to Jay Bennett), and have since been approaching Springsteenian levels with their marathon live shows, pulling from a deep catalog. More and more, after 2009’s Wilco (The Album), which played out like a cheap greatest hits collection, and their last album, the uneven Whole Love, it seemed the band had reached their Grateful Dead moment: their studio albums don’t turn heads anymore, but[...]

Tame Impala – Currents

July 13, 2015 Joe Cardina

Thanks to a Facebook post from my friend Matt, it has come to my attention that “Tame Impala is the Instagram of rock bands.” This comes as a part of a multiple-hundreds of words rant from this album review of Currents. First of all, if you read it, Will Neibergall writes a solid review of the CD, and he makes a point that can be argued for or against. It’s short and to the point, and it sparked a good ol’ Facebook discussion that I’m sure my friend Matt’s going to be notified of for the next couple days. And it definitely has been getting it’s click throughs and complaints. However I’m here to deconstruct it. “Tame Impala is the Instagram of rock bands.” It irks me to hear this bouncing around in my head. There are tidbits of the review and Mr. Neibergall’s analogy that ring true: “Instagram used to[...]

Neil Young and Promise of the Real – The Monsanto Years

July 1, 2015 Tim Fenster

Sure, in writing it sounded like a good idea, or at the very least a ballsy and righteous one. Neil Young, one of rock’s most dedicated social and environmental activists, dedicating the space of an entire LP to taking down one of the most controversial corporations in modern America, Monsanto Company, your trusted neighborhood manufacturer of carcinogenic PCBs, genetically-modified farming seeds and various herbicides. But political art – be in poetry, literature or music – is a delicate balancing act, and usually necessitates a less-or-more approach. This is the central problem for Neil Young and Co. on The Monsanto Years: he drives home the same points so heavy-handed and incessantly that his message grows dull and befuddled long before the record’s end. Attempts to clarify his argument – on “A Rock Star Bucks A Coffee” he addresses legislative efforts to have GMO foods labeled, and the company’s responding lawsuits –[...]

Girlpool – Before The World Was Big

June 16, 2015 Joe Cardina

Girlpool is as punk rock as it gets. Two girls, at 18, release their first LP and gain a moderate following. No drums, just bleeding heart lyrics that are as honest as it gets with a clean guitar and some simple bass lines. A year later, a second, finely tuned LP drops from the duo and the punk rock continues. Of course, this isn’t the type of punk rock that the Beastie Boys pissed off their parents with. This is the new age of lady-punk that has taken over the indie scene ever since genre prophets Sleater Kinney bursted back earlier this year. Before The World Was Big hits you right in the heart when you hear it. I don’t care if you’re an 18 year old girl ready to ship off to college that has a moderate collection of vinyl she’s trying to find a place for in her[...]

Major Lazer – Peace is The Mission

June 8, 2015 Joe Cardina

There is an appeal to Major Lazer even to those that don’t subscribe to the EDM culture. Guns Don’t Kill People, Lazers Do caught some attention in 2009 with one of the strangest combinations of sound heard at that time: reggae mixed with electronic dance music, smashed together with a sense of humor and a cartoon laser-toting Jamaican renegade soldier. It was fun in 2009, but that’s not the case anymore. Peace Is The Mission removes a good amount of the originality of Major Lazer and brings the project into the top 40. Lazer-founder Diplo seems to be travelling down the path that fellow pop producers Calvin Harris and Pharrell have recently went down: producing pop tracks for years, mostly under the radar, and eventually gaining enough cred in the Illuminati circle to release their own hit albums. While this album is probably going to do great in the sales[...]

Of Monsters and Men – Beneath the Skin

June 8, 2015 Tim Fenster

Nearly four years after their hugely successful debut, My Head Is an Animal, the Icelandic indie-folk/indie-pop quintet Of Monsters and Men has at last returned with a proper follow-up in Beneath the Skin. The record is a rare, near-perfect follow-up that both retains the group’s galloping choruses and effervescent energy while also pushing their sound in new directions. On Animal, the quintet’s melodies were so jaunty and jangely that even tragic songs like “Little Talks” – which seems to discuss communications between two lovers, one living, one dead – came across as bubbly and lighthearted. With Skin, some of alt-rock’s best hook-writers have gotten better at channeling that tragedy and beauty into their music. They still employ their big horn hooks and chants, but they’re done more subtly and artfully. The addition of pummeling tribal drums have also lent the music an oomph and expansiveness that fits excellently in the[...]

Jamie xx – In Colour

June 3, 2015 Brendan O'Connor

It’s been four years since we’ve heard a new studio album from acclaimed DJ and producer Jamie Smith, better known as Jamie xx. If you’ve never heard of Smith’s solo work, you have probably heard his material in The xx, his primary band. And for good reason, Smith has been skyrocketing in popularity, mainly after his production crediting on Drake’s hit single “Take Care,” and then Smith’s 2011 remix album, We’re New Here, which reimagined Gil Scott Heron’s I’m New Here track by track. That album hinted that Smith was going to go onto big things as Jamie xx, and almost four years later, In Colour is here, proving that he sure can shine on his own What’s remarkable about what Smith does on In Colour is that he writes so many genres into these songs, many that the casual music fan may not know and appreciate, all while making it totally accessible. In[...]

Florence + the Machine – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

June 2, 2015 Tim Fenster

As humans we would never wish personal turmoil, i.e. a tough breakup, on anybody, most of us having gone through a lot of that shit ourselves. As music-fans, however, there’s nothing better than a breakup, divorce, death of a loved one or mental breakdown, as tragedy has inspired so many artists’ best music. For baroque-y British soulstress Florence Welch, the personal turmoil included a “complicated, on-again-off-again relationship” with both a man and the bottle, culminating in a near mental breakdown during her time off following her astonishing sprint to the top with 2009’s Lungs and 2011’s Ceremonials. It’s also, thankfully for us, culminated in How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful – the most intimate, powerful album yet from this vocal powerhouse. She matches soul-barring, confrontational lyrics (see “You were on the other side, like always / You could never make you mine” from lead single “What Kind of Man”) with[...]

Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Multi-Love

May 28, 2015 Brendan O'Connor

Love is a topic that has been represented in music countless times, and there is no doubt that it will stay that way for years to come. It is also one of the most influential emotions, making you feel so many different and drastic ways, many times leading to an artistic release. In this case, New Zealand’s psych-indie rock outfit, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, shares its take on love’s many complications with the new album, Multi-Love. The opening vocals on the title track are a great indicator of what’s to come. Lead vocalist Ruban Nielson floats in over some simple keys and croons “Multi-Love / Checked into my heart and trashed it like a hotel room.” In general, Neilson tackles the topic of love as a whole (not how love can make himself feel, but how it can make anyone feel), and he does it in a way where he is[...]

Thee Oh Sees – Mutilator Defeated at Last

May 27, 2015 Joe Cardina

It’s something we’ve heard plenty of times in the last few years: John Dwyer has shit out another Thee Oh Sees album. Shit out is not to say that the product is less than grand, rather Shit out is to say that he is some sort of a lo-fi, tape-mongering, fuzz-fanatic who was crafted by the big god upstairs for the sole purpose of creating garage rock masterpieces Religious speculations aside, Dwyer has bestowed upon us the sixth Oh Sees album in the last five years. This one is titled Mutilator Defeated at Last, and it packs the typical Oh Sees punch we’ve been accustomed to being battered with in recent years, just a little bit more relaxed when compared with the previous release by the band, Floating Coffin. Just as past albums have done, Mutilator takes the listener on a journey, from creeping along with eerie squeaks of echoey electric guitars and cymbal taps to, without warning[...]

Eskimeaux – O.K.

May 21, 2015 Brendan O'Connor

I remember a couple of years ago when I stumbled across a collection of demos from Eskimeaux on an “album” titled Igluenza. Eskimeaux was a name I had heard mentioned constantly, being interested in many bands in the budding lo-fi scene out of Brooklyn. I almost instantly fell in love with the innocence, honesty, and simplicity of those demo recordings. Digging farther back into the project’s catalogue, I could tell that founding member Gabrielle Smith was certainly onto something from the beginning. When Smith first started what would become Eskimeaux, she was making tracks which were much more avant garde in nature, featuring ambient, drone inspired, experimental electronics. Out of these humble beginnings, Smith began to embrace more of a bedroom pop, glo-fi sound. After enlisting the help of members of the art collective, Epoch, including Felix Walworth of Told Slant, the project really seemed to find itself After seeing[...]

Faith No More – Sol Invictus

May 19, 2015 Tim Fenster

Even while experi-metal rockers Faith No More helped inform so much heavy music of the 90s and early Aughts, they always seemed to be miles removed from it. In the early 90s they were too abrasive for the alt-rock crowd, too weird and unpredictable for grunge, and by the late 90s too arty for the likes of KoRn and System of a Down, the nu-metal freaks they’d helped inspire. But the group still maintained a sizable cult following that’s proven impervious to critical panning and total lack of chart hits – sans “Epic” and “Midlife Crisis” – and one that only seems to have grown since their temporary disbanding in ’99. It seems only now the band’s getting the dues they deserve, and they couldn’t have proven themselves with a finer, so-called “comeback” disc than Sol Invictus. Rather than try and build on their enormously varied body of work, the[...]

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