Album Review: Odesza – In Return
When club music veers into alternative territory, splashes through the waters of chillwave and resurfaces amongst the electronica glitter, you get the sound that is Odesza. For sure, the Seattle duo’s first full…
Album Review: Bishop Allen – Lights Out
Bishop Allen hasn’t released an album since 2009. Their newest effort, Lights Out, dropped via Dead Oceans earlier this week. “Start Again” and “Why I Had to Go,” the album’s first two songs,…
Album Review: Popstrangers – Fortuna
New Zealand band Popstrangers’ new album, Fortuna, the band’s sophomore follow up to Antipodes is out now on Carpark Records. Because of or despite a certain degree of chaos that can be found…
Album Review: Sylvan Esso – Sylvan Esso
Over the last year or so albums like Taken By Trees’ Other Worlds and Wild Belle’s Isles have bridged the gap between electronic sounds and traditional rhythmic sensibilities by emphasizing beats and vocals while employing contemporary production. Duo…
Album Review: PAWS – Youth Culture Forever
It’s hard to imagine that an album full of passionately fuming lyrics could be so fun to listen to, but the sophomore record from the male trio PAWS proves that it’s possible. Youth…
Album Review: Pink Mountaintops – Get Back
As we approach Austin’s 7th annual Psych Fest hosted by Austin psych-heads The Black Angels, we find a lineup up that stays true to its cosmic breadth. From electronic button-smashing to four-piece outfits…
Album Review: Wyrd Visions – Half-Eaten Guitar
Visions is true folk-metal. There’s repetition for the sake of repetition, casting off expectations for a big build. On the opening track “Sigill,” fragile vocals come in after 2:30 of the same acoustic guitar riff….
Album Review: Elephant – Sky Swimming
Elephant’s debut album Sky Swimming features pop roots and a mellow vibe, generated by duo Amelia Rivas and Christian Pinchbeck. The two formed Elephant three years ago and have been creating notable music…
Album Review: Withered Hand – New Gods
Looking at the expansive horizon of electronic music that dominates popular music with seemingly endless references to decades and trends that spiral into a feedback loop of self-referential bologna, artists like Withered Hand,…
Album Review: Temples – Sun Structures
Did LSD bring out more music or did the music bring about more LSD? With Foxygen, Tame Impala, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Melody’s Echo Chamber and a slew of other similarly grounded groups on…
Album Review: New Bums – Voices in a Rented Room
The compilation Ben Chasney and Donovan Quinn create as New Bums on their debut album, Voices in a Rented Room is as well matched as stale cigarettes and a heavy pour of whiskey…
Album Review: Angel Olsen – Burn Your Fire For No Witness (Pop Press Pick)
I had no idea that the points of reference for Burn Your Fire For No Witness, the new album from Angel Olsen, would be Patsy Cline and Leonard Cohen. Simply put: I had no…
Album Review: Jess Williamson – Native State (Pop Press Pick)
Austin songstress Jess Williamson has been saving up Native State for a while, and the results are rewarding. Be assured: this is not a record of pop gems; this is not an attempt…
Album Review: Mount Eerie – Pre-Human Ideas
The day’s light is almost gone. The street that leads you home is the same as it always has been. Yet as the early winter, dusky light bounces through the branches of the…
EP Review: Trails and Ways – Trilingual
Trails and Ways’ Trilingual EP is an amalgamation of both Californian musical tradition, and gathered inspiration of international influences. When lead singers Keith Brower Brown and Emma Oppen returned from Brazil and Spain…
Album Review: Cayucas – Bigfoot
Beachy, fun pop has been a recurring theme and the modus operandi of any number of indie rock bands over the course of the last decade or so. Not that it ever disappeared…
Album Review: Born Ruffians – Birthmarks
Birthmarks, the third full-length album from Canadian indie group Born Ruffians, takes its title from the matching birthmarks that frontman Luke Lalonde and his girlfriend share. But before you think it’s purely a…
Album Review: The Black Angels – Indigo Meadow
The Black Angels were among the first bands to begin popularizing what has become a massive resurgence of the psychedelic genre. Not that they reinvented the genre, which has certainly remained alive since…
Album Review: The Strokes – Comedown Machine
The trouble with releasing a universally lauded debut album is that you’ll forever be measured not only by its greatness but also by its particular qualities. In this way, how “good” either the…
Album Review: Psychic Ills – One Track Mind
One Track Mind is the fourth album by decade-old New York group Psychic Ills, and it continues in the same art-house vein as their previous albums of downtempo psychedelia, grooving across strung-out soundscapes…
Album Review: Jim James – Regions of Light and Sound of God
After a couple of prolific decades and involvement in collaborative projects like Monsters of Folk and the New Multitudes Woody Guthrie album last year, it seemed almost impossible that My Morning Jacket frontman…
Album Review: Camper Van Beethoven – La Costa Perdida
In the time before ‘indie-rock’ there was Camper Van Beethoven, an irreverent, experimental group formed by singer-guitarist David Lowery, whose eclectic escapades across the genres of folk, psych, and punk rock helped give…
Album Review: Foxygen – We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic
All the promise reflected in Foxygen’s overdue debut full-length Take the Kids Off Broadway has been fully realized on their sophomore effort, We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic, which…
Album Review: Toro y Moi – Anything in Return
The sounds on chill-wave pioneers Toro y Moi’s new album, Anything in Return, glide through elements of pop, indie, hip-pop, house, and funk that are ceaselessly stimulated by itching, festering, fun textures that…
Album Review: Parquet Courts – Light Up Gold
Brooklyn-based indie-basement group Parquet Courts develops a fresh and winning take on slacker punk-rock over the course of their debut album, Light Up Gold. With lazy thrills reigning in their voices and aggressive,…
Album Review: Holopaw – Academy Songs Vol 1
Distant, rapid-fire snares echo with warehouse reverb as distorted electric guitars ring out. This is hardly what I expected from Holopaw, but I’m drawn to it at once. I remember Holopaw as a…
Album Review: Memory Tapes – Grace/Confusion
Memory Tapes, the recording project of Dayve Hawk, releases its third album, Grace/Confusion, today on Carpark Records. Hawk sharpens his skills even further on this album, effortlessly blending and moving between vastly divergent…
Album Review: The Fresh and Onlys – Long Slow Dance
The opening riffs and vocals of “20 Days and 20 Nights,” the first song on The Fresh and Onlys new album, Long Slow Dance, will undoubtedly call to mind 80s staples like The…
Album Review: Deerhoof – Breakup Song
Immediately, staccato blasts of stuttering distortion emanate from the speakers. Opener “Breakup Songs” (yes in the plural although it’s a single song, as opposed to the singular noun in the album title, Breakup Song, though an…
