Album Reviews
Album Review: Meursault – Crow Hill
Crow Hill’s songs first saw the light of day when Meursault put them out on a limited digital release about 18 months ago under the name Fuck Off Back To Art School, promising that they would be fleshed out by perforamnce and a comic strip. Taking a less overtly personal approach to songwriting, the 12 …
Album Review : Bill Callahan’s ‘Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest’
Bill Callahan is one of America’s best modern songwriters. Like contemporaries Will Oldham, Damien Jurado, Phil Elverum, and the late Vic Chesnutt, Callahan paints pictures of worlds of long ago in his songs. Touching on emotions and real life so plainly and without much need for interpretation, his dark voice and acoustic-driven songs feel like …
Album Review: Lettuce – Elevate
“This album definitely stretches the boundaries,” says chief composer and percussionist Deitch of New York funk sextet Lettuce, before pretty much summing up the album succinctly, saying “The idea was to keep exploring the different areas of funk and hip-hop beats, then writing melodies to those songs that made sense.” And that’s at the essence …
Album Review : Tim Heidecker – What The Brokenhearted Do…
It took me a long time to find an “in” with Tim Heidecker. In-particular, the comedy he created with Eric Warheim. Watching Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job on Adult Swim was both absolute hilarity and mild-to-extreme unease. Their comedy was this weird mix of 80s cable access video effects and mild hallucinatory fever …
Album Review: Hackney Colliery Band – Collaborations Vol. 1
I have to declare my prejudices. One of the best nights of my life was spent in the company of the Hackney Colliery Band (HCB). We turned up disgracefully early, and watched as the room went from empty to crushingly full, and then the boys blasted through own material and their legendary covers of Toto’s …
ALBUM REVIEW: MOTIONLESS IN WHITE- DISGUISE
Motionless In White made waves in 2012 with their scene-shaking Fearless Records debut Creatures, and have since become the burgeoning goth princes of modern metal. Their latest effort Disguise has much more of an appreciation for the raw, sinister energy Creatures brought to the table than their last album Graveyard Shift, but does not ignore …
Album Review: House and Land – Across the Field
It’s always this way for me, with music like this. Everything about it evokes the country; but not the country seen from far away of slow rolling slopes, soft meadows, trees whose green is bright and joyful seen from above and outside. Not this country. This is the country up close. The grass is stone-ridden …
Album Review: Psychedelic Porn Crumpets – And Now For The Whatchamacallit
Perth’s Psychedelic Porn Crumpets new album, And Now For The Whatchamacallit, puts them on a pedestal with their fellow countrymen King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard (I figured I wouldn’t get through the review without mentioning them, so let’s get it out there early) shining a light on antipodean psych music through, as well as …
Album Review : Paul Gilbert’s ‘Behold Electric Guitar’
I first discovered Paul Gilbert when I was a freshman in high school. Somewhere around 1988 or 1989 I picked up the Racer X album Second Heat and I was immediately blown away by the incredible Mr. Gilbert. I wasn’t as blown away by Racer X, but man could Paul Gilbert play. My admiration for …
Album Review : Black Mountain’s ‘Destroyer’
I remember when I got my drivers license. I was a late bloomer and didn’t get mine till I was 17. After some shenanigans prior to being 16 and my uncle’s 1949 Chevy, I was banned from getting my license for a bit. But when I did finally get it, it was such a feeling …