// Category Archive for: Current Faves

Music Review: The Blow Monkeys, She Was Only A Grocer’s Daughter (Reissue)

By Melissa Bratcher

After reissuing The Blow Monkeys’ first two albums, as well as their stellar newest album, Feels Like A New Morning (review), Cherry Red Records has released a deluxe edition of 1987’s She Was Only A Grocer’s Daughter. And a deluxe edition it is—remastered, chock full of remixes and astoundingly good demos, enhanced by an interview with The Blow Monkeys frontman, Robert Howard (Dr. Robert), in the liner notes. It is a boon for completists, collecting all the bits and bobs into one excellent package.

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Music Review: La Roux, Trouble In Paradise

By Melissa Bratcher

Though the BPMs on La Roux’s new album, Trouble In Paradise, are lower than on her surprise hit debut, it’s still the kind of record that moves you to the dance floor. After a tumultuous break (losing her voice, breaking off from her former partner in La Roux), Elly Jackson has returned with a much warmer, fun record, and it’s a very welcome one.

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DVD Review: Under The Skin

By Brad Henderson

I find it harder these days to write reviews of films that I thoroughly enjoy, and easier to review the films that I think are OK or not the greatest. Under The Skin will be in my Top 10 for this year and will not move from that spot.

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Music Review: Circulatory System, Mosaics Within Mosaics

By John Lane

Two things I want to get out of the away in the beginning of this review: Comparisons have been floated already in numerous reviews about this new album. The first is the comparison to The Beach Boys’ SMILE; while flattering perhaps to them in a remote way, I cannot think of a more off-base touchstone. To compare Mosaics Within Mosaics to SMILE is like visiting a wax museum and comparing the waxworks (SMILE) to the Easter Island statues (Mosaics). This is not to denigrate SMILE or Mosaics Within Mosaics, but rather to illustrate that the two albums occupy two entirely different planets not worthy of comparison. It’s like gazing at the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, observing the moustaches, and then saying the whole thing reminds you of The Village People because, you know, moustaches.

The second point of contention is the casual throw-around of the word “psychedelic” in all these reviews. Again, lazy and misleading, as the term itself has a sort of anachronistic dusty taint to it—would Steve Reich be considered psychedelic because of his experimentation with form and structure? I feel like the old person shaking his head at a young woman wearing styles that were unflattering in “my day.”

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Music Review: Rebirth Brass Band, Move Your Body

By Melissa Bratcher

For a band that was founded in 1983, Grammy-winning Rebirth Brass Band sounds amazingly fresh. One of the leading lights of the New Orleans brass band revival (see also: Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Hot 8, Soul Rebels), Rebirth hasn’t slowed, hasn’t stopped doing what they do well: making music that makes you move your feet. Or, as it states on the tin, Move Your Body.

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Music Review: Jim Mize, Jim Mize

By Melissa Bratcher

You can call Jim Mize a lot of things: eccentric, a hopeless romantic, and a visionary. You can also call him a great storyteller in the fine Southern tradition of raconteurs. On his latest release, the self-titled Jim Mize, he makes snapshots through well-placed words and his singular guitar work. The album feels rooted in the South in music and lyrics, though there’s not much that explicitly states it. But the South gets in, like kudzu, and Mize is an Arkansas native. It’s in the water. Or the air. Or possibly the dirt.

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Music Review: Frog Eyes, Carey’s Cold Spring

By Hanna

After a hiatus of three years, during which the album was already mostly finished, Frog Eyes’ Carey’s Cold Spring was self-released by Carey Mercer through Bandcamp last October, and is now being released by Paperbag Records on vinyl and CD.

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Music Review: Tom Freund, Two Moons

By Melissa Bratcher

There’s a gorgeous easiness to Two Moons, the latest album by singer/songwriter Tom Freund. It’s a sunny, low-key, nostalgic record that was funded by a PledgeMusic campaign. It’s the kind of record that you put on after a dreadful day, one that uplifts and feels like a perfect secret, full of fine musicianship and sagacious lyrics.

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Music Review: Anders Parker, There’s A Blue Bird In My Heart

By Melissa Bratcher

You know those TV shows that have artful music direction, like early Supernatural or Friday Night Lights or Parenthood (Jason Katims, I salute you!)? The ones that use quietly epic, devastating songs that push Matt Saracen’s story forward or underscore Sam and Dean’s struggle beautifully in a way that mere words can’t do, perhaps with an acoustic flourish? Anders Parker has written that record. There’s A Blue Bird In My Heart is packed with songs that have a quietly epic quality—the kind you feel deep down in your heart and guts.

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Music Review: Marc Almond, The Dancing Marquis

By Melissa Bratcher

As a young record buyer, all I needed to know about decadence, I learned from Marc Almond. His records taught me about Jacques Brel, euphemisms for masturbation, the grand alienation of aging out of your passions—you know, the stuff of life.

Now, ages later, it’s delightful to know Marc Almond hasn’t tamed his decadent leanings, and that both his writing and voice have gotten better with time. He was always a fine writer, able to capture a moment or a mood with an artfully placed word and a bit of cleverness. He wasn’t always the greatest of singers, though he did show that with passion and a well-versed torch song, you could overcome any vocal limitations. Don’t dream it, be it, and all that.

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