Album Reviews

Imagine if ten years ago The Growlers and The Blank Tapes decided to Fuck and go folk. Imagine the Magical Mystery Tour being piloted by Jim Croce. Imagine that Weezer had never put on their sweaters to have them unravel. Described as "wunderkinds", Nashville band, The Paperhead are making this sleepy Sunday sublime. Their new album, Africa Avenue, is decidedly pop with a light rock/folk tinge that borders on fanciful, but settles on Syd Barret psych. If you're the type of person that lives in NYC and goes to things like CMJ, you might want to check out their performance dates. If you're the type of person (like me) who doesn't live in NYC or goes to things like CMJ - because The Walking Dead is back and its football season and the kids wanna play The Game of Life even though...

A voice belonging to Jessica Larrabee of She Keeps Bees has reached through my speakers and given me a hug. It was deep and yet trembling in the form of the absolutely stunning, "It Is What It Is". It ran its fingers through my hair. Stroked the hair on my chest. Scratched my chin like a cat. It held my hand and took me on a late night walk. We rode bikes to lunch. We laughed throatily at old episodes of Monty Python while laying our bodies' angles congruent and comfortable. I think I'm falling in love with Jessica Larrabee's voice. She Keeps Bees' Eight Houses is a ridiculously mellow yet sultry tonic. It's sauce is heavy and lowdown but the kind of down and out that inspires one to soar. I just unbuttoned the bottom button of my work polo, bros. This is an album for the dark....

My favorite season is desolate. My favorite weather is cloudy and rainy. My favorite music is often cloudy, rainy and desolate. Despite what you might imagine my life is like with all of my kids running around my ankles, and my beautiful wife, and my spastic personality, melancholy is my favorite musical style. Instrumental melancholy is up there with ethereal instrumental in my book, and bro, my book is leather bound and features a pile of inter-woven serpents on its spine bro. shit is serious bro. My favorite French record label, Phonosaurus, which is home to Berry Weight and Dirty Art Club (*bites bottom lip and looks up sheepishly*), sent me this album from someone named Marina Quaissa a few weeks ago and I've been desolately raining clouds on muthafuckers with its inherently moody...

There's this bank me and my kids pass every day on the way to school. The few times they've gone with me through the drive-thru, for routine financial actions bros, they've acquired a Dum-Dum of varying flavors bros. But the flavors of high fructose corn syrupsy balls on woven cardboard sticks means nothing here bro, what this bank has that pertains to Big Mean Sound Machine is a row of reflective windows. These windows are a portal to the funky ass motherFuckin' throwback soundtrack we be rollin' wit on the way to le schoolio brolio. The first time I noticed the four of us all leaned back lookin' back at us in motherFuckin' funk heaven, it was a brisk 74 degrees fahrenheit at 6:45am bro. (That should tell you it was sum sum summertime bro.) We were pulling up to a red light, all windows...

Caribou's new album has put me in almost a dozen precarious situations so far. Like getting caught masturbating by the neighbor girl you've been sucking in your gut around since junior high, or getting peeped smelling scented lotions at Bath and Body Works by a group of your more masculine friends, or being seen tearing up while watching American Idol auditions, fucking Caribou dropped one of those "I'VE LOST ALL THE INHIBITIONS" albums. Who cares if you're in traffic, or at work, or standing among two dozen parents all watching their children kick a red pleather glove while staying "KEEYAA!", sometimes you just wish you would've not reacted how your body wanted you to subconsciously. Why couldn't I have NOT played that imaginary synth with both hands, fingers curved tightly down like a...

I remember the first time I saw Vision Quest. Besides nosebleeds and singlet crotch bulges, what the movie taught me most was that wearing a garbage bag was a necessity when trying to make weight. Also, if you put some serious synths and some partially cheesy electronic drums alone in a room together, someone is going to fucking wrassle bros. And if they weren't going to wrassle, well, your dad was going to rent the extra room in your crib out to some chick with a moist hole and a suspicious past. That vibe of half-corny intensity, where you can see yourself completely immersed in the environment and climate of the movie you're watching just the same as finding it dumb and turning the channel (or inserting a new VHS tape, BUT ONLY AFTER BEING KINDING AND REWINDING THO BRO). For some...

Milo is genuinely doing something different. And not like in that discordant experimental way you used to pretend you loved in art school. But as in logical progression. Full circle type shit. Milo has become a man. His quirk replaced by the same quirk only manlier. The same stream of consciousness only now the flow is a fucking full-fledged flood. I know Joel says he's proud of Milo. It's because he's seen the same thing. A boy believes he is smarter than the world. A man, a man knows he is not. On a toothpaste suburb, Milo has matured into an artist and offers listeners something in the form of rap music that isn't concerned with where YOU are but, unencumbered, girthy, plunges headforth into the inky black. It's the ultimate in "it's not where you from but where you at" trust...

Let it be known that prior to listening, I knew nothing, and still consider myself one who knows nothing about Angus and Julia Stone. I don't know whether I should know them for any particular reason, but I get the feeling I should know who Angus and Julia Stone are for some strange reason. Like, he seems like the meek and humble son of a rich oil tycoon and she's like some listless uninterested world traveler who grew up in a small town to two parents who loved her, but who never really put down roots anywhere, so she isn't just a free spirit, she's completely off the grid. Does any of that make sense? If you ever get around to listening to this album, start from the beginning and think of nothing. Don't even try assuming you already know what it's going to sound like, just let it sound...

On Cruel Fuel's second cut, Seez Mics chants, as a sort of Yeoman's mantra: "THE BEAUTY OF BEING A CHILD IS FEELING THE SAME WAY PRETTY MUCH ALL THE TIME." Does anyone else feel weird after reading that? Do you think you'd feel weirder if you'd heard it shouted in the general direction of your brain? Cruel Fuel is a weird album: It's a bit Workman, a sprinkle savage, a touch tough, an afternoon aloof, and, doubtlessly unintentionally, the antithesis of Robin Thicke's legacy (whatever that is and/or means to you). The way it's weird, though, is where and what counts on Cruel Fuel; it's like one of the weird Rap tapes I'd buy off a random merch table. In what is possibly the sleeper hit of fall , and the climax of a surreal trilogy, "Human Farm" showcases Seez...

Because I was so late with my review for Perfume Genius' 2nd album Put Your Back N 2 It; I've decided I'm going to be super early with my review for Too Bright. BUT this didn't come easy. In order to get an early copy, I had to promise Matador Records certain things that a married 34 year old man with 2 kids shouldn't be promising. I had to though....this is Perfume Genius, bro. I've literally been fawning over Mike Hadreas' (Hadreas is Perfume Genius) music for almost 2 years, bro. He's up on that pedestal Father John Misty and blow jobs because I can't go longer than 2 or 3 weeks without listening to Put Your Back N 2 It. I just need Perfume Genius in those moments I feel overwhelmed or am sad or am anxious. It distributes the feelz in Costco-esque bulk and variety. So was Too...