// Category Archive for: Music Reviews

Music Review: Tony Lucca, Tony Lucca

By Melissa Bratcher

I liked Tony Lucca’s self-titled album better when I wasn’t paying full attention to it. Full of chunky guitar and “whoo”-ing backup singers, it’s decent, if pedestrian. The songwriting reflects nights out in California and frisky women, and Lucca’s voice is pretty swell; husky in the right places, soulful where it needs to be. The problem is listening to it closely. His voice deserves better than these songs. He can sing, and sing well, but the material isn’t strong enough.

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Music Review: The Blancos, Heartless Romantic EP

By Tyler Hodg

A regrettable fact of music fandom is that it’s easy to come across inauthentic, materialistic garbage. Thankfully, the first offering from New York duo The Blancos—an EP titled Heartless Romantic—may be the most genuine collection of songs you will have the privilege of hearing. While their hip-hop/indie fusion sound includes familiar elements you may have heard before, Heartless Romantic is organically progressive and in a league of its own.

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Concert Review: Chris Isaak At The Kent Stage

By Julie Finley

December 16, 2014
Kent, OH

I was quite pleased when I learned that Chris Isaak would be doing a live gig and not too far from my home. He has played the area before, but every time one of many life’s obstacles has gotten in the way (usually work, illness, bad weather, lack of money, or a combo of the bunch). I remember reading that he would be playing The Kent Stage around Christmas of last year, but I was immobile, recovering from back surgery, AND there was a massive snowstorm, so I wasn’t going anywhere! I was bummed, because the venue is just so close (and not in some hell hole.).

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Music Review: Various Artists, Popcorn Girls

By Melissa Bratcher

The songs on Croydon Municipal’s Popcorn Girls defy simple description. They range from R&B burners, to country tinged numbers, to Shangri-La’s-like teen tragedies. Their commonality? In the 1970s Belgian club scene, they were guaranteed floor fillers. There was a certain type of dance endemic of the time, a “slow swing” with a rather specific tempo. As a result, Popcorn Girls is a moody, stone-cold, slow groove from beginning to end.

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Music Review: Peregrine Falls, Two Fish EP

By Tyler Hodg

Gritty, hard hitting, in your face: these are all things that almost completely describe Peregrine Falls (formally PinkBrown). With the release of their EP Two Fish, the band showcases what they’ve got in a condensed, to the point package—and what they have released is a frustrating product that just barely under-delivers.

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Music Review: Supertramp, Crime Of The Century (Reissue)

By Tyler Hodg

It’s been 40 years since Supertramp released their globally successful album Crime of the Century, and to commemorate its anniversary, the band released a new vinyl box set featuring the remastered album, a 7,500 word essay, rare photos, and an audio version of one of their 1975 concerts. If you have a feeling the album will hold up after four decades, you’d be “bloody well right.”

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Music Review, tētēma, geocidal

By Natalie Zina Walschots

There is not a single aspect of tētēma that is easy to pin down. Even when talking about the contributors to the project, things quickly become complicated. Billed as a duo—a collaboration between Mike Patton (who is beautifully credited with “voices,” a gesture towards plurality that attempts to take account of the breadth and depth of the Faith No More singer’s extraordinary talent) and Anthony Pateras (of Thymolphthalein and Pivixki)—the list of artists who contributed to geocidal is much more extensive.

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Music Review: Game Theory, Dead Center (Reissue)

By Chelsea Spear

Among the first run of American New Wave bands, the story of Game Theory is among the most quietly heartbreaking. While the ambitious musical and lyrical output of creative mastermind Scott Miller was never destined for an arena-sized audience, a combination of questionable management and bad record deals kept their music from an audience larger than the most ardent true believers.

Omnivore Records’ lush and expansive reissues are bringing Game Theory’s shimmering, melancholy pop to the widest audience it’s received to date. Dead Center, the second album they’ve repackaged and remastered, finds the 1983 iteration of Game Theory at an interesting point in their musical evolution. The production sounds more polished than on the home-recorded Dead Center, with a stronger low end and a greater sonic balance. Their arrangements show a greater sense of ambition, as well as the musical skill to back it up.

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Music Review: Ty Segall, $ingle$ 2

By Less Lee Moore

Every time I hear someone complaining that rock and roll is dead, I cringe. This proclamation is usually accompanied by a rant against Miley Cyrus or whatever Top 40 artist is being hyped at the moment. Which leads me to wonder: is the concern that rock and roll is dead, or that it’s no longer at the top of the Billboard charts?

Any handwringing over the fate of rock and roll quickly falls apart in the presence of Ty Segall. For one thing, he’s clearly beholden to his forebears while still sounding vital and original. He also puts out a lot of music on a frequent basis. And he releases honest to goodness singles. Granted, a lot of bands release singles these days, especially via iTunes, but what makes Ty Segall’s singles special is that they come with B-sides, which, if we’re going the traditional route, is way more rock and roll because it evokes the format in which rock music ascended the charts: the vinyl 45.

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Music Review: Alain Goraguer, La Planète Sauvage (Fantastic Planet) Original Soundtrack

By Noreen Sobczyk

OK, full disclosure: as a sort of sommelier of the strange, I’m embarrassed to say I had never seen La Planète Sauvage (a.k.a. Fantastic Planet) until recently. But never fear, because this should prove to even the most jaded, freaky, boogie children that it’s never too late to discover something mind blowingly cool. If you haven’t seen this gorgeously animated Science Fiction philosophical allegory, seek it out immediately. Do not pass go; do not collect 200 dollars.

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