// Category Archive for: Music Reviews

Arranged Marriage, Dearly Beloved

By Christian Lipski

As a rule, kids never like the music their parents listen to. Likewise, there’s an unwritten law that parents must hate their children’s music. It’s important for young people to develop their own identities as people, and for parents to get a taste of what they put their own parents through. That’s what makes the band Arranged Marriage such a unique treat: father Brad Allen has teamed up with his son Scott to write, perform and produce the album Dearly Beloved.
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Crudbump, NA$TYJAM$

By Adam McIntyre

The latest effort/persona from Drew (of Toothpaste For Dinner, Married To The Sea, and others): Crudbump.

Bathe in its magnificence. . . wait, did you hook up a subwoofer? I told you to hook up your subwoofer. Pretty sure I did tell you. You’re going to need it.
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Joy Division’s Grandkids: Ceremony: A New Order Tribute & Reissues From The Other Two

By Emily Carney

Tony Wilson, the pretentious but well-meaning head of Factory Records (lovingly and hilariously immortalized by Steve Coogan in the 2002 film 24 Hour Party People) may be no more, but it goes without saying that his legend still exists—and how could it not? This is the man who made possible such bands as Joy Division and the Happy Mondays (who were good in their heyday, really). Since his death, the bassist for the now-defunct New Order, Peter Hook, has sort of appointed himself as the ambassador of Manchester’s musical history.
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Hypernova, Through The Chaos

By Matt Demers

I’m not going to lie: I volunteered to review Hypernova because of their name. I mean, as a nerd, the word “nova” has certain. . . gravitas towards it, be it for the physics reference or one of the few words to pull off the “badass v” consonant.

But I was pleasantly surprised by their new album, Through The Chaos; there were no songs that I vehemently hated on the album. This is a bit of a feat for me, as when I listen to most records there seems to be one or two tracks that stick out like sore thumbs. In the best case, they serve as annoying distractions and at worst, they can derail an entire album. An album that is cohesive as an album (thematically or otherwise) definitely wins points in my mind.
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The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Dirty Shirt Rock ‘N’ Roll: The First Ten Years

By Noreen Sobczyk

Jon Spencer is a man of many faces. He is a crazed preacher proselytizing the electric gospel. He is a musical ringmaster with Tourette’s Syndrome repeatedly proclaiming, “the blues is number one.” He is the majestic mumbling Boomhauer of rock and roll. He and the Blues Explosion are here for one reason: to save rock and roll. And they do it repeatedly, as though it simply flows from their veins; as if they were born to do it. If you’ve ever seen them live, you know two things for certain: they take no prisoners and they are not fucking around.
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Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, I Learned The Hard Way

By Noreen Sobczyk

Every music lover has undoubtedly been asked the same question at some point: “So what kind of music do you like?” It’s one of those tricky questions that sometimes results in a snarky answer, such as “the kind with melody and rhythm.”
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Béla Fleck, Throw Down Your Heart, Africa Sessions Part Two

By Lisa Anderson

Many people may not know this, but the roots of banjo music actually go back to Africa. Eclectic American banjo player Béla Fleck traveled to Africa to explore this history and learn from African musicians. The result was the 2008 documentary Throw Down your Heart, and the 2009 album Throw Down Your Heart, Tales From The Acoustic Planet, Africa Sessions. Part two of the album was released early this year.
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The Man From Another Place, The Loneliest Cowboy EP

By John Lane

There’s something a-brewing in Scotland, and aye, I believe it has the whiff of genius. (Macbeth, Scotland, witches reference—anyone? Bueller?)

The Man From Another Place (a.k.a. Dan Hirst) has proven himself to perhaps be the next incarnation of Burt Bacharach, providing five cinematic tunes on his debut EP that defy the listener to not daydream or soul-search. The title itself, The Loneliest Cowboy, hints at its instrumental-only air, suggesting a mute cowboy who wistfully ambles along with his ol’ horse and lets the music in his head do the talking while visualizing sweeping country vistas.
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The Dudes, Blood Guts Bruises Cuts

By Danny R. Phillips

In my younger years, Power Pop was a genre that I avoided it like the Black Plague or Herpes. As a long time advocate of the virtues of punk rock I could not allow myself to support music with such an identity crisis. Was it hard rock? Bubblegum? What? With a few exceptions, mainly Cheap Trick, The Cars, and the riff from “Jessie’s Girl,” it was not something I championed or even tolerated.

Then came the 1990s and with it came bands like Weezer and the exceptional songsmith Matthew Sweet, musicians who embraced the principles of power pop and drank fully of its long and storied past. Perhaps years had softened my barriers or I was now old enough to see that punk has its limits. Power Pop was no longer the enemy.
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Everybody Was In The French Resistance. . . Now!, Fixin’ The Charts Volume One

By Noreen Sobczyk

When I first heard that Dyan Valdes (The Blood Arm) and Eddie Argos (Art Brut) were recording an album together, I was excited.

Argos always has plenty of humor and clever turns of phrase in his musical arsenal to fight the musical blahs. His antics with faux glam band Glam Chops even made Christmas music more enjoyable. So when I read Fixin’ the Charts was an album of answer songs I thought, “Well, that’s clever.”
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