On the Record
“Loving Man,” with its ecstatic gender-blurring one minute (“I’m A boy/I’m a girl/Who has everything”), bipolar furor at rejection the next, and frustrating refusal to climax musically, sounds dragged in from another project, matching the …
After several delays, starlet Sky Ferreira has released her debut. Ferreira gained popularity last year with her glossy single “Everything Is Embarrassing,” and the synth-pop singer/model/actress appears to have improved her songcraft with a new …
Many of my friends will give me grief for this review. Until the release of Melophobia, I loathed Cage the Elephant. Their previous songs were so unbearably cheesy to me that I dismissed this album …
Almost every rhyme, predictable. Almost every sentiment, common (hopefully). But I am behind this one, and you should be, too. For commonality and for predictability, actually. Because rock and roll has come around to the …
I'm going to take a step that Darkside would appreciate and open this review with a recklessly bold statement: Psychic is a classic album. The 11-minute opening track, the Kubrickian level of detail, the efficient …
“Will you still need me...when I'm 64?” Yeah, even at 71 we need you, when you can still make great original music. My favorite cut on Paul McCartney’s new record is “Early Days,” an acoustic …
They wouldn’t shell out for Bill Ward. That’s one obscenity. He’s the drummer for Sabbath, dunderheads, pull out the purse. Only excuse I can think of is Tony Iommi thought maybe he was down for …
Two decades and 12 albums later, of Montreal mastermind Kevin Barnes has decided to throw back to the band’s earliest sounds. Lousy With Sylvianbriar steps back from the synth-soaked songs of Paralytic Stalks and Hissing …
Meet Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim. The three sisters, along with drummer Dash Hutton, make up indie-pop band Haim (rhymes with “time”). Haim’s soft rock-meets-R&B sound got a nod to Fleetwood Mac by critics in …
Slow. Dissolve. As opposed to slow dazzle. Cinematic synth-pop owing at least as much to German Expressionism as the actually Krautrock Kraftwerk they salute through synth and textures. Impeccable ‘tis, in counterpoint and timbre, to …
It was suggested that I listen to some newer artists for review, so I downloaded Jake Bugg's self-titled debut, thinking, You can't get much newer then a 19-year-old. Bugg is a British singer/songwriter who's a …
Ernest Greene, aka Washed Out, has let us into his fantasy world. Paracosm, Greene’s second full-length, opens with sounds of a fairytale forest morning where you don’t know whether the day will be great or …
Tift Merritt’s sounding more like Patty Griffin than ever, and the choice of a Griffin tune to this singular mind-meld of classical piano (Simone Dinnerstein) and whatever it is Merritt does, seems to wink conspiratorially. …
“Healing, like fire from a gun/ Kneeling, my God in the sun,” wails Josh Homme on “My God Is the Sun,” the first single from Queens of the Stone Age’s new album. The song sounds …
After a notorious kiss and tell Playboy interview, John Mayer moved to remote Montana to escape the flack and recover from throat surgery. Lucky for us, while there he produced some of the best lyrics …