Album Reviews

I'll say this once, and only as a preface for the following, and only because it's true, and only to get it out of the way: I'm a Blueprint fanboy. Blueprint is the only rapper I listen to consistently who improves with every album. I say that every time I write about the dude, but it's the absolute fucking truth. Print has grown from raps about being a rapper rapping, to raps about a rapper rapping about culture, to raps about a rapper rapping about racism, politics and society, to King No Crown, where he's a rapper rapping about respecting himself enough to be better than all other rappers rapping, and mainly by making better conscious decisions. King No Crown is the album where I imagine an even minier-Print rapping on my right shoulder. Lil' Print's pointing out...

In my review for Mikal Cronin's previous album MCII, I may have equated his music to the modern day Dad's music. It's the shit you want to listen to while white knuckling the steering wheel of your Honda Odyessy as you rush to pick up the kids from soccer practice because Dad's always be running late. Always. This is by NO means a knock on Mikal Cronin or his music because his albums blow the baby bjorn straps off your shoulders. MCII was one of my favorite albums in 2013. I still listen to it today. And MCIII is the perfect continuation. So when I say 'Dad music' I mean that it is the perfect mid-line for the almost middle aged adult. Basically me......it's perfect for me. It's not overly soft. It's not overly hard.....it doesn't try to over compensate. It's...

Within the first minute of hearing The Lobby EP from whoever the Fuck Allies are, I knew who they sounded like. Not only was I dead on in my first assumption, but I could hear my assumption throughout the entire fucking EP. I won’t make you wait, Allies sound like the perfect smooshwich of Mutemath and Solid Gold. Take the smooth balls chill shits of Solid Gold and toss them under the loungey sass throat of Mutemath and you’ve got fucking Allies. Opening track “Laid Back” is a sunny Saturday afternoon spent not paying attention to the fact you’re wearing warm ups and house shoes in public. It’s slow sways and nods, enjoying a nice unintelligible falsetto seemingly out of nowhere whenever the chorus rolls back around. “Get Back Kids” is a serious nod towards Solid Gold’s Bodies of...

Did you know I discovered Alabama Shakes? I discovered them before anybody else did because I read about them on a blog. But that blogger shouldn't get credit for discovering them because....well JUST BECAUSE. I DID. Seriously though. I love seeing deserving bands on that ground level and then watching them rise to the penthouse. I know I have nothing to do with their success, but for some reason I feel their pride. Everybody has that band, or even a couple of bands, they share pride this with. When Joel and I went on a date night one cold December in 2011 we saw them at The Hideout (seriously, click on this fucking picture) in Chicago, a venue with a 150 person capacity, we were close enough to get sweat on and give appreciation hugs after the show. It was one of those shows...

As a guy who has spent the majority of his life in the Chicago area, Chicago is important to me. From the food, to the streets, to the people, to the people who make the food on the streets, there is nothing Chicago offers (yes, besides the violence, political ass fucking, constant fear of tornadoes, taxes, potholes, White Sox fans, construction and Cubs fans) I don't love. My ears have been especially spoiled over the last two decades, as friends of mine have released such fucking amazing music if I hit play on a "homies only" playlist the fucker would play for six goddamn days, babies would be conceived, walls would crumble, and we would toast a life well spent with overflowing mugs filled with delicious horchata. Chicago's sounds are as much a part of the city, to me, as the "chicken"...

Earl Sweatshirt is a third natural griot, a third bored millennial, and a third tortured artist. It's a recipe that can feel heavy-handed at times. It's like, taking any life or rap advice from a dude this age is bound to make some veteran eyes roll. But you can't help but toast the success and savvy of his Odd Future collective. His observations at times are little more than the musings of a melodramatic child becoming a man on record. I'm glad that there are little to no record of anything I said before 25. Other times you realize just to what heights these observations are coming from. And you can't not respect that. I knew Earl Sweatshirt when he was the goofy, yet shy Thebe Kgositsile. You see, I was a mere first-year teacher when this introverted youngster made his way through our...

Billy Woods needs help redefining what writing nothing looks like, because his "nothing" is a verbose full-length sermon of melancholy street hymns that slowly drip deep into your primary motor cortex. History Will Absolve Me was my first introduction into the mind of woods, and his street corner conversational style, and I was slow to dive in. woods is from a similar school as Gza, Aesop Rock and MF Doom in that he never wastes a word and it takes more than casual listens to really appreciate his pieces. None of this was bad for me because, while I can at times enjoy Drake and Big Sean, my bread and butter is shit that makes me rewind or keep the album on repeat to grasp it. His Armand Hammer cohort Elucid not only shows up spitting his own verbal graffiti, but lends production for billy...

Ralph and I (Brando) are unrepentedly in love with Ceschi. Like truly in love with his music, but even more so the man and what he stands for. His label Fake Four, Inc. has released forward-thinking, quality independent music time after time after time. The Fake Four stable makes up a large slice of our deliciously hairy music pie chart, bros. So with our love worn so publicly, Ralph and I decided to tag-team Ceschi's new record review like the Road Warriors we truly are. Read our takes on Broken Bone Ballads: Ralph: Broken Bone Ballads is the soul bearing, war story of one of music's most important voices on the road, in the studio, and running a fucking label in the last 15 years! I know Ceschi like most fans do. I was introduced to him with The One Man Band Broke Up...

Alright, I'll admit it. I'm not a pop record kind of guy. You're never going to hear me blasting some heavy bass line out of my car and you definitely won't see me letting it all hang out on the dance floor. So, I can't stress enough that it takes a really special effort for me to even attempt a review of a dance pop record. I mean, it has to be a special kind of fantastic. That's what we have with Reptar's Lurid Glow. Reptar formed in 2011 when William Kennedy (Imperceivable Shifts in Latitude, LOOK, Salsa Chest) had just moved to Athens, GA to study music and ended up playing in a band called CoCoRiCo with Reptar drummer Andrew McFrarland (Semicircle). Ryan Engelberger (Semicircle) and Graham Ulicny (Thick Paint, LOOK, Channel Pressure) ended up moving to Athens to fill out the...

Last time you heard me screaming at you about The Static Tones it was when I stumbled across an EP they had put out. I was fully aroused and it lasted more than four hours. It lasted until now. The full album is here bros. I finally came. Brotherhood Of Strangers is everything I had hoped it would be from this affable band of shit lips. Everywhere I wanted it to go, it went, like it studied my porn search history. A musical Don Juan that seduced me and explored my sexual fantasies with every ounce of distortion and sustain. I'm thrusting at you beloved. I'm thrusting with everything I have. The Static Tones are a giant sack of loud. A big sound that kicks your nuts through your Adam's apple. The record wastes little time getting through the intro before it blasts you in the face...