video review
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Snake Oil’s debut LP is a pretty nice piece of instrumental psych rock. The recording of this this is really great, too. It separates the instrumentation perfectly, and swells very nicely when everything layers on top of one another. The melodies are decent, and the grooves are nice, but
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On Arctic Monkeys’ latest album, the band drains themselves of adrenaline to play a set of songs that go back in time and try to revive a group of dated sounds. The guys play with sunshine pop, garage rock, and even some Queens of the Stone Age-esque riffage make it
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What can I say about Planningtorock’s latest album that’s positive? Honestly, not much. Not only that, but I’m awestruck at how positive some of the receptions have been to what she’s doing. I don’t begrudge her the fanbase she’s gathered so far–especially since
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OK, so it’s widely acknowledged that a lot of people don’t care about Death Cab for cutie anymore. I guess I used to be one of them, too. But because of all the requests and my own curiosity, I figured I’d try out Codes and Keys since
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My Morning Jacket’s latest album was a two-part surprise for me. First, I was happy to hear how alive and ambitious the first half of this album was. Not only are the hooks and instrumentation strong, but the band seems equally comfortable saying something beautiful or funny with their
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On Coma Cinema’s third album lo-fi production backs up some real-life sadness on about 15 songs. It’s a little spotty, but nothing really sticks around long enough to disappoint. Some songs here really did hit me as memorable on my first listen, though. If you’re down with
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On Boris’ latest albums, the band seeks to simplify their sound a bit. While they have made their style a little more accessible–especially on Attention Please–I don’t think it’s translated into something that’s exactly catchy or memorable. Still, there are some pretty heavy moments on
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On Elmatic, Detroit’s Elzhi rewrite’s Nas’ seminal Illmatic to fit his personal story. Thanks to his flow, lyricism, and some production help from the Will Sessions band, the project goes off without a hitch. I’m sure it’ll be debated whether or not this album is better
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On “the Rose With the Broken Neck,” Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi pull together some Italian-style soundtrack music with Jack White on vocals. Though the textures and sounds are vintage and pretty authentic, the drama of this track–the drama I imagine should be here–doesn’t really hit me.
