// Category Archive for: Music Reviews

Music Review: Sloan, Commonwealth

By Melissa Bratcher

Roughly a million years ago, or probably closer to 12, my new friend Dave and I were chatting with Sloan’s Andrew Scott after a show and Dave asked if perhaps one day Sloan might do something like KISS did in 1978: each member release a solo album at the same time and they could have matching covers and see whose sells the best. Andrew replied, laconically, “Oh, Jay would fucking love that.” (I’m not paraphrasing there; I’m pretty sure that’s what he said exactly.)

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Music Review: Game Theory, Blaze Of Glory (Reissue)

By Cait Brennan

Scott Miller wrote and sang some of the most innovative, intelligent, moving indie pop of the past three decades. For years, though, the Game Theory catalog has been impossible to hear, keeping the work of this essential artist out of reach of all but the most devoted fans. Miller’s tragic passing in April 2013 galvanized efforts to change that, and America’s finest reissue label rode to the rescue. At long last, 1982’s Blaze Of Glory is back, with a bevy of bonus goodies, and it’s a harbinger of even bigger things to come.

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Music Review: SW/MM/NG, Feel Not Bad

By Ben van D

Hillary Clinton giving birth to a fully-grown and wailing Brian Wilson in the passenger seat of a bulletproof deuce coup might seem unlikely. Perhaps no more likely than bleached California coast pop sprouting up from the heart of land-locked Arkansas. However unlikely, somehow Fayetteville’s SW/MM/NG make it seem natural with their debut offering Feel Not Bad.

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Music Review: Ty Segall, Manipulator

By Less Lee Moore

Pick yourself up, walk down the street
Feel the freaks that you shall meet
They are your family now. . .
—Ty Segall, “The Feels”

Singing old Pat Benatar songs at a karaoke party this spring revealed to me something that I hadn’t realized: most popular songs today don’t have guitar solos, which makes for some slightly awkward, “let’s skip to the Taylor Swift track” moments when you’re waiting to belt out that last Pat Benatar chorus. It doesn’t make those songs any less singalong-able, it just means that a lot of younger (ahem) music fans seem to get bored if a song isn’t wall-to-wall vocals.

But no one could be bored by Ty Segall. It’s true, the man does have a penchant for shredding, but he can sing like a mofo and doesn’t noodle or show off, unless you call displaying his prodigious talents “showing off.” Spawning dozens of releases at a breakneck pace for the last six years or so (plus constant touring) means he’s had plenty of opportunities to hone his craft and Manipulator is the epitome of that craft thus far.

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Music Review: Naomi Punk, Television Man

By Less Lee Moore

Those who claim all The Ramones songs sound alike have clearly never listened to Naomi Punk. This trio from Washington has cast their lot with a very limited sonic palette. Each of the tracks on their newest release, Television Man, strain against those limits like fish in a tank that’s too small.

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Music Review: The Psycho Sisters, Up On The Chair, Beatrice

By Less Lee Moore

In the 1990s, I was lucky enough to live in New Orleans. The Continental Drifters lived there, too, and I’ve lost track of the number of times I saw them play live, mostly at The Howlin’ Wolf. Drifter Peter Holsapple played a free acoustic set every Sunday at Carrollton Station which completely obliterated the “Sunday night blues” for those of us stuck in that Monday to Friday, 9 – 5 grind. And occasionally, Drifters Susan Cowsill and Vicki Peterson would perform as The Psycho Sisters. Those familiar with The Cowsills or The Bangles who’ve never heard these two women harmonize are in for a special treat with Up On The Chair, Beatrice.

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Music Review: Tinnarose, Tinnarose

By Melissa Bratcher

Tinnarose’s self-titled debut album feels like a classic rock album. There’s a tablespoon of Nilsson, a dash of Bowie, some drops of Steely Dan, all shaken up together and covered in sprinkles of inventive harmonies. Cooking metaphors aside, Tinnarose is a likeable debut with power pop sensibilities.

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Music Review: Spoon, They Want My Soul

By Noreen Sobczyk

Guess what? This review isn’t going to compare Spoon to their possible influences, nor will the author jack herself off by citing said influences with hipper than thou references. Spoon has been, at the very least, a good band (with moments of a great band) for a long time. You may or may not know that yet, but They Want My Soul is worthy of your time and money. Knowing how cool you are by “getting” an author’s dazzling musical knowledge has nothing to do with that. The short version of this review is that the lyrics are clever, witty, and at times acerbic, and the music is interesting, melodic, simple yet layered, and other bits are more complex or partially in conflict with the general melody, but never cacophonous. It’s worth buying and unpeeling the onion skin of lyrical meanings at your leisure—or not. The album sounds great and stands alone whether or not one cares to excavate lyrics like a scholar examining cave paintings.

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Music Review: Royal Blood, Royal Blood

By Melissa Bratcher

Jack White, what hath you wrought? The debut album from Brighton UK’s Royal Blood sounds amazingly like the White Stripes, from the gutbucket blues stylings to Mike Kerr’s anguished howls and yelps. They, too, are a duo, though the thing that sets them apart is they are a bass and drum combo. I have no idea how one can make a bass sound so guitary, but Kerr does it. Hell of a trick, that is.

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Music Review: Mortals, Cursed To See The Future

By Tim Murr

The debut album by Mortals from Brooklyn, NY is a black/thrash/sludge metal-enthusiast’s dream. Cursed To See The Future hits hard and never relents across six tracks, clocking in at around 50 minutes. With brutal, pummeling rhythms, throat-shredding vocals, and unimpeachable guitar and bass work, Cursed sets a high bar for a debut.

I don’t think it should be necessary in 2014 to make a big deal about Mortals being an all female power trio that rightly earns comparisons to High On Fire and Darkthrone, but there you go. These three women—Caryn Havlik (drums), Lesley Wolf (bass/vocals), and Elizabeth Cline (guitar)—create rhythmically exciting metal that stands shoulder to shoulder with any of their contemporaries. Track 5, “Series Of Decay,” backs up that assessment nicely.

After buying this album, it’s been pretty much all I’ve listened to, and before that I’d been listening to their Death Ritual EP and Night Terror Demo. I like Mortals quite a bit and highly recommend Cursed To See The Future. It’ll be exciting to watch this band continue to evolve; they’ll certainly be one of Relapse Records MVPs. If you can catch them on tour make sure you buy them each a quadruple espresso!

Cursed To See The Future was released by Relapse Records on July 8 and can be purchased on the label’s website. You can listen to the album on Bandcamp and purchase it from there, too.