Album Reviews
Not Forgotten – Sparks – Exotic Creatures of the Deep
Following up the undisputed best album of your career must be an unenviable task. There was no way that Oranges & Lemons was ever going to be a match for Skylarking, Desire was no Blood on the Tracks, i, as brilliant as it is, will always suffer in comparison to 69 Love Songs, Guerrilla would …
Not Forgotten – Elton John – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Top selling musicians these days have it easy. The average recording artist is expected to release a new album once every two years, maybe one a year if they are a new artist. Back in the early 70s it was a given that at least one album a year was the acceptable rate, that way …
Album Review – The Hold Steady – Teeth Dreams
The Hold Steady return in a hail of guitars. Great, that’s exactly what I want from The Hold Steady. As much as they’ve engaged my enthusiasm for wordy guitar rock over the last few years, I have to admit that their previous album, Heaven is Whenever, was the one I had the most difficulty connecting …
Not Forgotten: Brendan Benson – The Alternative to Love
2005 was an odd year for power pop, when three big names released albums of new material. As fate would have it these much anticipated releases by Teenage Fanclub, The Posies and Big Star were solid, but at the end of the day they were just preaching to the converted. Just the same skillful playing …
Album Review: Jakob Skott – Amor Fati
Hello. It’s good to be back from my mission to the fourth realm of Garzan. It was a rough flight, flying through the Araucaria Fire, just past the Eastman Oyster and landing near the Omega Oscillator. The native Garzanians call their home planet an “Earth of No Horizon”, which means if you look out onto …
Not Forgotten – Gene Clark – No Other
You know something, sometimes it’s okay to not succeed. Sometimes you put every ounce of energy and emotion at your disposal into achieving your goal and still you fail. Sometimes the level of effort you have put into something only becomes evident months, years, maybe even decades after the event, thus offering retrospective redemption to …
Album Review: Nothing – Guilty Of Everything
One of the most arresting, pounding, and quite beautiful 40 minutes you could spend would be with Nothing’s Guilty Of Everything. Imagine this vast black space and you’re staring down into it. It’s scary as hell, and you see no discernible bottom in this cavernous hole. Yet there’s something quite beautiful emanating from it that …
Psych Insight: Album Review – A Psych Tribute to the Doors (Cleopatra Records)
When people ask me what sort of music I am into these days I am never quite sure how to respond because whatever I say be it just ‘psychedelic’, or something like new, neo, or contemporary psych does not really help. The most common response is something along the lines of “oh that druggy music them”, …
Album Review: Real Estate – Atlas
You know I like apathy, discontent, and an overall general malaise in my art fix like the next guy. And a bit of snarky condescension always makes a song go down a bit rougher, yet satisfyingly cold as well. I mean really, wouldn’t you rather have disconnected sarcasm permeating the tunes you pump into your …
Not Forgotten – The Rutles
After years of only being available as a hideously overpriced import, when The Rutles finally received an official CD release in the UK, it was at least a decade too late, but hey, we have it now and the pre-fab four have never sounded better. So why was it at least a decade too late? …