Music
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Ty Segall is shaping up to be one of those fractured-genius sorta rockers, in the style of his buddy Johnny Dwyer (of the Oh Sees). After dropping a debut slice of garage-brilliance, Lemons, last y...read more
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Sometimes it seems like Black Mountain is just toying with us -- such as within the first two minutes of "The Hair Song," the opening track on the Vancouver band's new album, Wilderness Heart. With...read more
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It feels kinda redundant to review this record. I mean, Superchunk practically wrote the book on how to be an indie band: how to stick to your guns, how to compromise here and there without selling...read more
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Sharon Van Etten's second full-length effort will be (is!) one of the best records to come out of NYC this year, no lie. The title is meant to be seen in lowercase, a softly ironic statement from a...read more
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This album was going to be talked about no matter what — but Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest is such a complete and full work of pop artistry that it'll surely go down as one of the indie records of th...read more
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While exhilarating, Marnie Stern's first two albums felt at times like they were constantly reminding us of her guitar prowess -- which, it has to be said, is straight-up flabbergasting. Her third ...read more
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This blessed record is everything you'd want and more from the former (and probably, once again) Sleater-Kinney principal. On her first sort-of solo album, Corin Tucker shows that even the most acc...read more
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For album number four, Antony Hegarty immediately dispels the weight of any expectations set by his previous, much-lauded work, and simply sings beauty: Swanlights is characterized by an apparent o...read more
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What can we say? What can anyone say about Kanye West in 2010? For one thing, the dude himself says so freakin' much — about himself! Like, where are we supposed to get a word in edgewise? The trut...read more
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You want a band you can hang your hopes on, a band that'll never let you down, a band whose logo is worth scrawling on your arm, jacket, notebook, skateboard? Dutch punk legends the Ex are that ban...read more
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Brooklyn song-angel Lia Ices glided gracefully under the radar with her 2008 debut, Necima, a jaw-droppingly gorgeous collection of poetic, beautifully sung ruminations on love and all the things t...read more
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To tell you the truth, if John Darnielle put out record of radio static with the words "the Mountain Goats" on the cover, we'd dig it. We'd be confused by it, but we'd dig it. Darnielle is really o...read more
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It wasn't hard to guess that for one of the most anticipated releases of the year, NYer in exile Panda Bear would play it somewhat safe: The first song on Tomboy, the follow-up to the Animal's brea...read more
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The proud sons and daughter of Haledon, NJ, reconvene 19 years after their last album to deliver a great record that makes it seem as if no time has passed for the Feelies. Here Before is not the b...read more
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Ponytail's third album is called Do Whatever You Want All the Time, it's out on a label called We Are Free, and frontperson Willy (formerly Molly) Siegel recently gave one of the coolest, most fran...read more
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What does mystery man Cass McCombs mean by that title? Is this a veiled allusion to the end of his career? For who is wittier than Cass? That's right—started a review with three straight questions,...read more
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One of the most remarkably thought-out and heartful rock records of the year will probably be skipped over by a lot of people for either the band's name or its frontman's perpetually shouted vocals...read more
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Ty Segall's weird and we dig it. His debut for Drag City is a killer rock record—just not the one we thought he was gonna make. In his past work for the Goner label (and others), Segall has shown a...read more
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The latest intense document of the past to come from the Tompkins Square label is a monster work (you know, like a big hairy masterwork), especially for anyone who's become interested in Middle Eas...read more
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Hey, the long-awaited collab between hip-hop's (and really, pop music's) two biggest alpha dogs is finally here. What do you wanna know about it? At this point it's possible you might have seen a r...read more
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Several albums into a remarkable career that has made them one of the most popular groups in the (sorry, hate this term) world-music scene, Tinariwen, the band of nomadic sub-Saharan former rebels,...read more
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Everything about this record is so right-on that I'm getting a contact high just telling you about it. And I haven't even told you about it yet! Psychic Ills are a long-running NYC band dedicated t...read more
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It's been a long time since I've thought in terms of, "This band could speak for me -- I would let them." But sitting here trying to catalog everything that is so right-on about London's Comet Gain...read more
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How do we know 2011 has been a good year for music? Two full Cass McCombs albums, that's how. Warm on the heels of the quiet brilliance of Wit's End comes Humor Risk, with a higher quotient of the ...read more
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Bradford Cox is so ably advancing so many different narratives at the same time that he should be like, really well-known and widely admired. He is? Well, good. The Deerhunter capo's latest as Atla...read more
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I'm not going to get into the long, tortured saga of the Beach Boys' Smile,
recorded some 45 years ago but not officially released until last week;
I'm just going to tell you that it's the finest...read more
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One of the more impressive box sets we've seen this year (if not longer), this mammoth work—more than 10 years in the making—throws back the veils of time to tell the story of how John Fahey came t...read more
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Owners of the best first song on any rock record released this year -- you can take that to the bank -- NYC quartet the Men made a significant splash in 2011 with their first widely distributed alb...read more
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It's a fantastic and disorienting time to be a fan of African music. While genius imprints like Analog Africa, Soundway and (now) Dust-to-Digital excavate the incredibly rich musical history of the...read more
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Destined to make plenty of 2012 year-end lists ('cause the band coyly slid the record out so late in '11), the Black Keys' latest mints this humbly anthemic rock & roll band as one of the few t...read more
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Um...whoa. What would you expect from this record's title? A bunch of good-to-great rock songs, sure, okay. So why does this assembled batch of singles come off like one of the best rock albums of ...read more
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