// Category Archive for: Music Reviews

Music Review: R. Kelly, The Buffet

By Paul Casey

R. Kelly’s thirteenth studio album, The Buffet, is an album of conflicting styles. Up front, The Buffet takes all of the ridiculous sex metaphors from throughout Kelly’s career and amplifies them to an extreme. Like Black Panties and 12 Play before it, things get dark and filthy. You can probably imagine the kind of sexy food metaphors that Kelly employs in pursuit of the perfect dirty song, but here is a quote anyway: “Come and feed me baby / girl put your body on a dinner plate / I just can’t get enough of your buffet and I’m so hungry / baby feed me.”

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Music Review: Giuda, Speaks Evil

By Hanna

Giuda’s third album, Speaks Evil, continues where their previous albums left off: the band is still making cheerful glam rock of the stomping, junkshop kind. Image-wise, they have moved away from their earlier Sharpie style, and gone for something more pared down, heavy on monochrome and denim. Now they look like Crushed Butler, or, if you’re in a bitchy mood, a lesbian mechanics’ union. In any case, they look authentic, and they sound authentic, too. If you play a lot of glam rock, this album will blend right into your playlists and nothing will remind you that this was made in 2015, even when–very occasionally–you wish it would.

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Music Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

By: Tyler Hodg

Finding a franchise that has produced the same number of memorable musical themes as Star Wars may be a difficult task. The sounds of the films have become iconic pieces in pop culture and remain classic tracks after nearly 40 years.

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Music Review: End Of Love, Ghosts On The Radio

By Melissa Bratcher

There are a lot of cooks in the band End Of Love. The press release refers to them as a collective of musicians, and from the unevenness of their album Ghosts On The Radio, it certainly seems they’re more of a collective. The players on Ghosts On The Radio read like a who’s who of college radio: Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth, Chris Stamey from the dB’s, members of Wilco and Big Star. There’s a rotating cast of vocalists, most notably Django Haskins from Old Ceremony, but also Skylar Gudasz, Karlie Bruce, and Elisa Peimer.

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Music Review: Hedersleben, The Fall Of Chronopolis

By Tim Murr

From the book description on Amazon.com:

“The mighty ships of the Third Time Fleet relentlessly patrolled the Chronotic Empire’s thousand-year frontier, blotting out an error of history here or there before swooping back to challenge other time-traveling civilizations far into the future.

Captain Mond Aton had been proud to serve in such a fleet. But now, falsely convicted of cowardice and dereliction of duty, he had been given the cruelest of sentences: to be sent unprotected into time as a lone messenger between the cruising time-ships. After such an inconceivable experience in the endless voids there was only one option left to him.

To be allowed to die.”
—The Fall of Chronopolis by Barrington J. Bayley

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Music Review: Saber Tiger, The Best Of Saber Tiger

By Tim Murr

The more you learn, the less you know. Sapporo, Japan’s Saber Tiger have been rocking since 1981, making them an official classic metal band. Until I received this album to review, however, I’d never heard of them!

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Music Review: Nat King Cole, The Christmas Song

By Melissa Bratcher

Nat King Cole’s album The Christmas Song is a masterpiece. Year after year, Cole’s dulcet tones fill the airwaves, kindling warm feelings of nostalgia through his tracks. The songs on The Christmas Songs are (save one, the little-heard “A Cradle In Bethlehem”) classics, and Cole’s performances are easy, understated treasures.

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Music Review: Shovels & Rope, Busted Jukebox, Vol. 1

By Melissa Bratcher

When a band releases an all covers album, sometimes the things revealed by their choices are baffling (I’m looking at you still, Duran Duran). When a band like Shovels & Rope release an all covers album, their choices are illuminating.

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Music Review: David Essex, Rock On; David Essex; All The Fun Of The Fair (Reissues)

By Hanna

With his own jukebox musical and sold-out comeback shows, David Essex has no need of a revival, though by now his career is so long that there are always parts of it that could use extra attention. A documentary from Alan G. Parker is slated for release soon, which is a good enough reason for Cherry Red to re-release Essex’s first three albums on CD: Rock On (1973), David Essex (1974), and All The Fun Of The Fair (1975). All three reissues are fairly straightforward, with the original album art, some informative liner notes by Phil Hendriks, and a couple of interesting bonus tracks.

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Music Review: Arlo Hannigan, House And Home

By Melissa Bratcher

If I were the sort of pithy writer who could sum up an album (or EP, as this is) in one word, I would say Arlo Hannigan’s new EP House And Home is intimate. I would, of course, be remiss in not adding, House And Home  is gorgeous, rich, and immersive. There’s a feeling of space, both the wide open kind and the heavenly kind.

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