Pick of the Week:
No Age: Nouns
The thing that makes No Age’s music so exciting is there’s really no precedent for it. Sure, from a distance they look like a two-piece punk band, playing fast music to hordes of excitable kids, but look closer. The layers of atmospheric guitar noise and lopsided samples transcend punk pretty quickly, bringing to mind the more warped...read more
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Animal Collective: Water Curses
No quickie throwaway, Water Curses is a welcome addendum to last year’s spectacular Strawberry Jam, combining the band’s recent penchant for strong melodies with plenty o...read more
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Portishead: Third
No one but Portishead could pull something like this off. Think about it; one of the three or four definitive trip-hop groups in the 90’s puts out two albums that not only set ...read more
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Frightened Rabbit: The Midnight Organ Fight
I was ready to declare Frightened Rabbit’s The Midnight Organ Fight one of the freshest and most exciting debuts I’ve heard this year, until I discovered that this is act...read more
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Jamie Lidell: JIM
Jamie Lidell’s influences are placed in the forefront of JIM, his first album in three years: some mid-70s Stevie Wonder here, some Impressions there. “Another Day”...read more
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Boris: Smile
Proving to be one of the most prolific artists in recent years, Smile marks the first new offical Boris album since 2005’s Pink. Following a collaboration Merzbow, Smile delive...read more
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v/a: Nigeria Rock Special
The third Nigerian compilation from Sound Way this year is another winner. Most of the time there are elements of highlife or Afrobeat in the sound, but the guitarists tend to favor ...read more
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Awesome Color: Electric Aborigines
Once I was at a party and someone came up to Awesome Color’s drummer Allison Busch and said “Oh man, I saw your show last night. You’re and amazing drummer!” ...read more
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Cloudland Canyon: Lie In Light
7 minutes into Cloudland Canyon’s remarkable new record Lie In Light you might be pretty sure you’re listening to the first Neu record. The album’s opener “Kr...read more
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Tickley Feather
If you were worried that people had stopped doing drugs and locking themselves in closets making insane music, please rest easy. Where exactly the Paw Tracks street team (a.k.a. Anim...read more
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Tokyo Police Club: Elephant Shell
Arriving just in time for spring is the debut LP from young-and-hungry literary pop kids Tokyo Police Club. TPC make a case for exuberance through brevity, with only one of the eleve...read more
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M83: Saturdays=Youth
M83’s move towards more vocals increases considerably and successfully thanks to new vocalist/keyboardist Morgan Kibby, not only because her breathy vocals are sexily intoxicat...read more
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Constantines: Kensington Heights
The Constantines’ first two albums were fine collections of anthemic punk; when the strongest criticism you can muster is that they didn’t match their (incendiary) live s...read more
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El Perro Del Mar: From The Valley To The Stars
From the Valley to the Stars, Sarah Assbring’s second album under the name El Perro del Mar, is an emotionally complex work. Assbring’s sensibility leads her to write org...read more
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J. Spaceman/Sun City Girls: Mister Lonely Soundtrack
Harmony Korine has always relied heavily on music for sculpting the feel and identity of his movies. It’s hard to imagine the images Gummo or Kids being half as effective witho...read more
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Billy Bragg: Mr. Love & Justice (Deluxe Edition)
Even more low-key than usual for Bragg, this one might slip under the radar, which would be a loss. Given a few listens, it’s subtly infectious. The energy level may be set at ...read more
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Monotonix: Body Language
Tel Aviv, Israel is not exactly known for their fuzzed out garage rock scene, then again if history has taught us anything it’s that location can be as influential on a band as...read more
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The Breeders: Mountain Battles
Far from the ultra-catchy and inspired pop of The Last Splash, Mountain Battles, The Breeders first album in six years, carries on with the sparse and minimal rock tradition of Pod a...read more
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Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
How many bands can still deliver on their 14th album? (Studio album, at that, not even including live albums or collections?) Not many. Nick Cave continues his icon status with Bad S...read more
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Colin Meloy: Sings Live!
This is not an improvement on The Decemberists, from whose repertoire most of the songs come (two supplemented with allusions to old songs by Fleetwood Mac and Morrissey). But no mat...read more
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Brian Jonestown Massacre: My Bloody Underground
Anyone who saw the amazing rock-biopic Dig could ascertain that Anton Newcombe, the only constant member of Brian Jonestown Massacre is fully insane. It’s a sad thing, in some ...read more
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Man Man: Rabbit Habbits
Man Man are back in town and they have not lost their ability to write deliciously fractured and volatile song snippets that bring to mind the better periods of Captain Beefheart and...read more
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Clinic: Do It!
Over their ten-year run, Clinic hasn’t evolved as much as they’ve honed a particular sound that encompasses more than a record or two could hold. Much like a lot of their...read more
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Tapes 'N Tapes: Walk It Off
This Minneapolis-based indie band’s sophomore album comes two years after their well-received release of The Loon, which left critics comparing them to Pavement. Backed by mel...read more
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Peter Moren: The Last Tycoon
It’s easy to forget sometimes that songs are important. The amount of energy, money and hype that goes into making a band well-known often overshadows the fact that their songs...read more
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The Microphones: The Glow Pt. 2 (Expanded Reissue)
Upon its original release in 2001, The Microphones’ The Glow Pt. 2 was heralded as a silent masterpiece, earning accolades for its lush-yet-uneasy take on bedroom pop music. Th...read more
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The Dodos: Visiter
The Dodos have put together such a unique combination of genres and sounds here that it’s pretty much impossible to dismiss them, with or without all of the hype. With a propu...read more
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Black Keys: Attack & Release
After seven years and four albums of basement-recorded trashcan blues rock, Akron Ohio’s favorite sons The Black Keys return with Attack & Release. The big deal being made ...read more
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New Bloods: The Secret Life
The New Bloods’ Secret Life is one of the most impressive debuts I’ve heard this year. This all-grrrl trio from Portland boasts an unusual arrangement: violin, bass and d...read more
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Raconteurs: Consolers of the Lonely
The sophomore release from heavy-hitting supergroup The Raconteurs was a marketing experiment in getting the music straight to the people. Released a week after it was announced to t...read more
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Foals: Antidotes
At first my reaction was “ho-hum, more post-punk revivalists,” but there are so many unusual touches that this is not more angularity-by-numbers. Sometimes it’s a little like A...read more
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The Duke Spirit: Neptune
The spa town of Cheltenham in South West England does not seem like the ideal breeding ground for a garage-blues band, but after countless label troubles and the release of several E...read more
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Silver Mount Zion: 13 Blues For Thirteen Moons
Though 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons keeps the same permutation of the Silver Mt. Zion name used for 2005’s Horses In the Sky, something feels different about this album relative...read more
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Sun Kil Moon: April
That voice. Not to diminish Mark Kozelek’s prodigious gifts for arrangement and production, nor his tremendous guitar-playing, but the amber beauty and light-in-darkness of Sun Kil...read more
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Apples In Stereo: Electronic Projects For Musicians
B-sides compilations can be spotty – full of curiosities and outtakes, intended for superfans and completists only – but as Elephant 6 Brian Wilson-worshippers Apples In Stereo ...read more
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Silje Nes: Ames Room
What a lovely and surprising album! The first effort by Norway’s Silje Nes is one of the most impressive debuts we’ve heard in some time. At once mischievous and accomplished, ra...read more
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Destroyer: Trouble in Dreams
The problem with describing the latest effort by genius Dan Bejar (also of New Pornographers and Swan Lake) to someone who’s never heard his work as Destroyer is that such descript...read more
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Fleet Foxes: Sun Giant EP
Feel free to chalk it up to the fact that I’m a Seattle native, but I’m telling you right now that this is your new favorite band. Hailing from the aforementioned city, ...read more
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Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: Real Emotional Trash
Do you like your riffs searing, your guitar solos chunky, your lyrics abstruse but perfectly rhymed and your vocals dotted with reaching falsetto? If so, you’re probably already a ...read more
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Beach House: Devotion
Expanding on the skeletal feel of their first record, Beach House’s Devotion pays attention to space and atmosphere in a way that’s hard to find in the context of orchest...read more
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Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago
Every so often a ray of light emerges, rising above the strummy-strum of the indie-folk ghettos and crystallizing everything pure about simple American roots music with an approach t...read more
