Let me be up-front about it: if you’re already familiar with Roky Moon & BOLT!, the band’s new full-length, American Honey, is going to sound, well, pretty familiar. Kind of. Looking at the track listing for the album, I’m seeing a lot of songs I’ve heard in some form…
There’s a part of me that really, really wants to hate The Slow Poisoner’s Magic Casket. I’ve never been big on the whole horror schtick — the goofy, faux-serious Gothic lyrics, “creepy” vocals, and cheeseball B-movie samples, it always, always, always rubs me the wrong way…
During the height of World War II, a crazed madman digging up secret treasures all over Europe has discovered a way to bring the entire world under his control, and the embattled forces of the Allies might not be able to stop him. Their only hope is to fight fire with some mad-science fire…
I first took a listen to three-man instro-sludge-metal outfit Peloton’s self-titled debut EP on a whim, really, just curious to see what they sounded like. I’d missed seeing them a while back, and they’d come highly recommended…
Normally, metalcore-ish stuff like this gives me a freaking headache and has me reaching for the “Stop” button after barely two tracks; there’s only so much I can take of pummeling, detuned guitars and unintelligibly bellowed vocals, y’know?…
The length of the cast alone should tell you just how long this has been coming; after 10 years, the Harry Potter series finally comes to a close with an extended bang. Mainly because that’s pretty much all it has left. It should come as no surprise…
Justice Tirapelli-Jamail and Cory Sinclair of The Manichean don’t ever, ever do things halfway, apparently. At least, that’s the feeling I get after drifting my way through the band’s latest release, Sakura. It was originally intended to be a quick little tide-you-over EP…
When the old-school beats, dancefloor noise, and tribal-sounding, gorilla-like hoots come in at the start of “Blastoff,” the first track on Reptar’s Oblangle Fizz, Y’all EP (and before you ask: no, I have no idea what the title means)…
Filmmakers and story-tellers, especially the ones specifically targeting adolescent and pre-adolescent boys, love telling coming-of-age stories. They speak to self-belief and hidden power, making them potent vehicles for hanging personal power fantasy off of…
I’ve had some misgivings about this one for a while now. To be sure, The Stone Foxes’ Bears & Bulls is well-done — very well-done, in fact, and I’ll get to that in a sec — but… Well, there’s just something about it…
How old are these guys, again? That’s the thought that keeps replaying in my head, over and over again, as I listen to the Folk Family Revival’s debut full-length, Unfolding. It boggles my mind that at least a couple…
It was my sci-fi nerd-ness that suckered me into Charles The Osprey’s debut album Consider, believe it or not. I hadn’t really given the album a whole lot of thought, honestly — at first listen, it was just yet another prog-metal thing…
Rather than mine the pop-punk-y hooks that’ve become the template for the vast majority of punk bands lately, or even really hew close to the garage-rock that’s surged to the surface in recent years, on Deceiver, The Wrong Ones dive straight into the gutter…
To be honest, I feel a little weird here, attempting to coherently talk about pianist/keyboardist Kris Becker’s debut full-length, Inventions. This sounds a little strange, but I generally try to review stuff that I know…
Everybody comes of age some time or another, and if you haven’t learned that from personal experience yet, movies will take the burden off you, because every director makes a coming-of-age film at some time or another, too…
With a name like “Priory,” you could be forgiven for assuming this Portland quartet plays gloomy Goth-metal, or maybe somber, glacial chillwave or something, but you’d be pretty damn distant from the truth. What the band plays, instead…
When I first listened through The Case Files, the latest release from power-pop/Americana icon Peter Case, I did it blind, just listening to it without reading anything about it beforehand. And that first spin left me somewhat confused…
Everything Lil’ Randy touches turns psychedelic. This is true whether it’s a locally comissioned R&B mixtape or freestyles by local luminaries who come to the DJ Screw protege for his take on his mentor’s Screwtape tradition…
After getting drunk, getting drugged, and stealing a tiger, a police car, and a small Asian man — and misplacing their best friend in the process — you would think Phil, Stu, and Alan would have learned…
There is no easy way to describe the experience of listening to Holiday, the latest full-length by Winter Wallace (who, as their Facebook page is careful to note, is a band, not just a singer with backing musicians). On the one hand, there’s the music…
The short version is X-Men: First Class is an excellent return to form after several missteps, capturing everything that made the series great and jettisoning must of the unnecessary stuff. That’s all you really need to know, but if you need more, keep going…
Before you write Kontakte off for their Explosions-In-The-Sky-ish guitars, listen to what’s behind them. In the second track, “Hope…,” the glitchy textures and eerily distorted digital voices start painting a picture of a type of post-rock that’s obviously…
More than anything else, I find myself wanting to point over to fellow gentle indie-folksters Fleet Foxes each time I run through Pepper Rabbit’s debut release, Beauregard; the music made by both bands unfolds slowly and deliberately, warm as a blanket yet still seemingly fragile…
Cormac McCarthy once said the only thing he could ever imagine writing about was life and death, because nothing else would ever be important enough to waste time and words on. I imagine if someone were to ask Terrence Malick that question…
Welcome to the Wild New West, folks. Despite their English-derived name, with High Noon Moon, The Tyburn Jig have carved what sure seems to me like a brand-new little musical niche; they’ve wedged themselves in this strange, half-spooky corner…
It’s been a decade now since the last “real” release from California pop-punk icons Face to Face, since way back in 2002 with How to Ruin Everything, and y’know, I was nervous. It’s not a stretch to declare that discovering Face to Face’s Don’t Turn Away shaped…
I’ve been a fan of Greg Dulli for something like two decades now; it’s a little weird to read that line back, but yeah, it’s the truth. I’ve loved the guy’s work since I first heard The Afghan Whigs’ “Retarded,” way back in 1991 or so, followed his career with the Whigs…
Okay, so here’s a funny thing: I know from the band’s bio that these songs began life as folky, singer/songwriter compositions, with frontwoman/guitarist Sarah Hirsch belting ’em out to subdued crowds at coffee houses and whatnot between here and Austin…
Honestly, Asobi Seksu’s Fluorescence hits so many damn touchstones — and seemingly throws in more with every subsequent listen — that I feel like I can barely keep hold of it. Right when I think I’ve got James Hanna and Yuki Chikudate pegged…
The life of Saint Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of the Opus Dei movement, seems ripe for dramatization, regardless of what you may think of his accomplishments. Founded during the Spanish Civil War, Escrivá’s order…
This review isn’t so much about Colour Revolt insomuch as it’s about how much I dislike indie music. Listen, don’t get all defensive if you find indie music the second coming; all it means is that I have different tastes than you…
In 1994, three French explorers delved into the reaches of what became known as the Chauvet Cave in southern France and found one of the world’s great archeological treasures: a group of the oldest, best-preserved…
Listening to Scale The Summit’s latest full-length, The Collective, is less like hearing a band play, honestly, and more like watching some insanely-skilled team of weavers create a tapestry out of laser beams or quantum strings or something…
The realization that “The David Mayfield Parade” band was just David Mayfield hit me harder than when I found out that Soylent Green was people. I first saw David when he was playing bass for his amazing little sister Jessica Lea Mayfield at Walter’s on Washington…
It’s been 14 years since Young Team was released, announcing the debut of post-rock’s then-newest practitioners, Mogwai. Since 1997, the genre has garnered quite a bit of attention in the film and television industry…
When I heard Rind Stars’ 2007 electro-folk debut, Sounds of Fire and Light, I couldn’t wait for the follow up. And when the bass player had a breakdown and left the band, city, and state, I still thought they’d record soon…
There’s an oddly back-of-the-bar vibe to Art Institute’s Second Audio Demon; by that I mean that it comes off like it’s music that’s meant for the crowd of twenty or so afficionados gathered in the dimly-lit space rather than the partiers up front…
I know I can tend to be overly effusive when it comes to reviewing music, especially from local musicians, so I’ve made a vow to be more exacting, more harsh — less Fresh Prince and more Samuel L. Jackson. And that’s going to happen right after this review…
There’s a nicely sludgy, grungy (or rather, grunge-y) feel to Mind Your Mind, the debut full-length from RIVERS; like a lot of bands from a decade or two ago, the band rides the line between bluesy rock and bass-heavy, Sabbath-y metal…
One of the problems with being a critic is watching the same stories over and over and over again, and however well told they might be, the lack of freshness can’t help but be a strike against them. This is especially true of light summer entertainment…
