CMW 2015: Toronto Women In Music at The Garrison

By Less Lee Moore

Toronto, ON
May 5, 2015

Megan Bonnell

What a splendid idea for an evening! Whoever programmed this lineup did a fantastic job: the sonic palette of the musical offerings increased in intensity as the evening progressed.

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Music Review: The Dead Ships, EP I

By Tyler Hodg

Produced by Broken Social Scene’s Brendan Canning, The Dead Ships’ EP I is now available for those wishing to listen to some well-crafted and diverse tracks. Having one full-length album already under their belts, the Los Angeles band brings the heat once again with their latest release and it doesn’t take long to fall under its hypnotic spell; in fact, just one listen will do the trick.

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Music Review: Banditos, Banditos

By Melissa Bratcher

When was the last time you heard a kick-ass kazoo solo (or even a bad one)? On the Banditos’ self-titled debut you’ll find one, and realize that you don’t hear enough kazoo in your daily life. And while that’s an interesting moment on Banditos, there is so much more to dig. The band is tight, taking disparate influences and deftly weaving them into a sound that is completely their own. It’s an incredibly assured, fully formed debut featuring smart songwriting and three vocalists who each add their own flavor to the songs.

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Music Review: Paul Revere and the Raiders, Revolution! (Reissue)

By Melissa Bratcher

Paul Revere and the Raiders were weirder than they got credit for. In 1967, during the making of their Revolution! album, lead singer Mark Lindsay was living at 10050 Cielo Drive with producer/musician Terry Melcher, making music and doing the sorts of things that young rock stars do. Paul Revere, the band’s namesake, wasn’t in the studio much, having been relegated to playing chords on the organ and taking a backseat to Lindsay’s musical ambition and insane charisma. This left Lindsay and Melcher free to make Revolution! more experimental and freewheeling than other Raiders outings, with a host of the finest session musicians (Ry Cooder! Taj Mahal! Hal Blaine! Glen Campbell!). And Revolution! has some excellently weird moments.

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Music Review: Them Are Us Too, Remain

By Less Lee Moore

In the press release for Remain, the debut album from southern California duo Them Are Us Too, the band is compared to both Cocteau Twins and The Sundays. It’s a description that is not an exaggeration.

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Music Review: Various Artists, Rock! Wreck! & Rule!

By Melissa Bratcher

What do you get when you marry B-movie sensibilities with punk ethos and rockabilly’s hard driving, stand-up bass flavored beats? Did you answer “psychobilly?” Of course you did.

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Music Review: Jacco Gardner, Hypnophobia

By Melissa Bratcher

On Hypnophobia, the follow up to Dutch multi-instrumentalist/producer Jacco Gardner’s 2013 Cabinet Of Curiosities, the lines between sleeping and waking are blurred. Hypnophobia is dream-like and gauzy, with gorgeous, hazy melodies. It feels like Syd Barrett joined the Beatles.

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Music Review: Part 1, Funeral Parade EP (Reissue)

By Less Lee Moore

Perhaps the only reason that hundreds of copies of Part 1’s 1982 EP Funeral Parade weren’t burned at Southern Baptist churches during the eighties is because there were only 300 of them pressed. Lord knows if I’d heard their vicious, anti-religious lyrics and angular, distorted music back then I would have been an instant fan. Now we can all rejoice because Sacred Bones has reissued a remastered version of Funeral Parade in a deluxe gatefold sleeve. The UK band also reformed in 2013 and did a brief tour of North America for the first time ever this past April.

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Music Review: Ivan & Alyosha, It’s All Just Pretend

By Melissa Bratcher

Seattle’s Ivan & Alyosha make thoughtful and inspiring music that resides at the crossroads of power pop and folk, but that doesn’t explain enough. Their latest, It’s All Just Pretend, is captivating, as well as familiar, but not derivative. It feels like a classic album but refreshingly new. It’s charming, but not twee.

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Music Review: Hannah Miller, Hannah Miller

By Tyler Hodg

Nashville folk-pop singer Hannah Miller has returned with a self-titled album and this time she is channeling a darker, edgier side. This is her third full-length album, and Miller has developed a more mature sound, not that her earlier work was exactly child’s play. The ten new songs (plus an alternate version of an already included track) featured on the album are equally as impressive as her previous efforts, if not better.

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