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Top 5: White Lung
Where much new punk music is conflated with hardcore, stoner metal, indie, folk or pop-punk, White Lung have managed to pick up where mid-aughts bands left off, to push a straight-up punk sound into a different realm without interlacing their tunes with conventions from other genres on their sophomore release, Sorry. … read more
Top 5: Purity Ring
Shrines is a beautiful contradiction of icy, synthetic start-and-stops created by Corin Roddick, and the sugar-dipped ghost vocals of Megan James dissecting through the cold mass of chimes with awkward, gut-wrenching lyrics. Though the choppy hip hop beats, dubstep wobbles and breathy witch house elements initially draw the listener in with exterior superficiality, a few more close listens reveal a poetic push-and-pull between the instrumentals and songwriting that beg for deconstruction. … read more
Top 5: Japandroids
Celebration Rock is the musical equivalent of getting shitfaced with your friends and talking about past successes or ex-girlfriends, ending the night with drunken optimism about the future. Somewhere between post-rock and pop-punk, they are never trying too hard to be cool—it all seems genuine. … read more
Top 5: Evoken
“I will diminish those centuries and persecute those with quiet desperation,” bleeds a grumbled death roar from the title track off Evoken’s fifth album. Not only do the gloomy lyrics set the tone of the album with the starting song, but the music does as well. Atra Mors’ biggest success as an album is its gutsy equality of atmospheric, obliterating doom and brain-stem-carving memorability. … read more
Top 5: Crystal Castles
Ethan Kath begins with a heart-heavy siren—your chest caves as your ears ache to understand what is coming. You feel yourself stepping onto a spaceship, and, before you know it, you are counting down, beat by beat, three, two, one … blastoff. Vocalist Alice Glass’s signature, scathing voice yells, “I am the plague,” and you succumb to the darkness that they breathe. … read more
Top 5: Atom Age
The second full-length album from this Berkeley, Calif. quintet blows the doors right open with “Dig the Future,” blistering with punk rock fury and garage rock swagger. Brendan Frye’s sax is easily the standout element of The Atom Age’s sound, as he gives an extra gallon of rocket fuel to the band’s already frantically fast numbers , but is an equally effective attitude enhancer in slower songs. … read more
National Music Reviews – November 2012
New and recent releaes from Aimee Mann, Andre Williams, Boys Noize, Brother Ali, Dordeduh, Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch, Midnight, Neurosis, Peace, Pig Destroyer, Tweak Bird, YOKOKIMTHURSTON and more are reviewed. … read more
The Jezabels, Yukon Blonde @ Kilby 10.10
On Oct. 10 the crowd at Kilby Court was treated to two well known international bands: Vancouver/B.C. based, Yukon Blonde, and the Australia-based Jezabels. Both bands have earned best-of credentials in their home countries, and have earned spots in American festivals like South By Southwest, Coachella and Lollapalooza. To see them both in one night at a venue the size of Kilby Court was a blast. … read more
Morbid Angel, Dark Funeral, Grave @ The Complex 10.08
Some days, I really feel older than I actually am, and lately I feel it more and more. If I had seen this show in my teens or early 20s, it probably would’ve been something I’d be bat-shit crazy for. For the trio of bands, I was content nodding my head and mouthing lyrics. I managed to score a stool in the bar section of the Grand at the Complex and got to sit on my crippled ass and watch some good old death metal, with for some reason, a really bland black metal band on Monday, October 8. … read more
National Music Reviews – October 2012
New and recent releases from Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Between The Buried & Me, Cat Power, Deerhoof, Dinosaur Jr., Enslaved, Lavatory, NOFX, Sea Wolf, Slug Guts and many more are reviewed. … read more