Album Reviews

Normally, if I'm going to describe a band as "reverby" I'm not necessarily using it as a compliment. I'm the grumpy old asshole that thinks relying on a guitar effect for every song is gimmicky, cheap, a cop out, a essentially a band aide to hide the reality of being shitty by sounding "cool bro". But, I'm not afraid of eating my words bro. Especially if thems words are delicious when sprankled with the fact that I now have a favorite reverby band bro. Escape To New York are my favorite reverby band bro. From the first song I became obsessed with to my new favorites, A Long Time Between Monsters is a solid EP's worth of an introduction to a band you should join me in publicly declaring fanboy status over. Escape To New York sounds both adolescent and mature as Fuck, as they feel...

My experiences with Duologue are pretty specific. While not in actual situation, but feeling, their delivery is both creeped the Fuck out and desperate as fuuuuuck. I can always remember how I feel when their music is shooting through my head's holes, but I can't always remember names of songs or lyrics. The sensory-related gifts they hath bestowed on me are immeasurable. Vocally, the feels this fucker flings at us while singing is exhausting, but it's one of those feels where you're appreciative of where it's coming from, even when it's scary how comforting the distress this shit is reminding you of is. Seriously, the misery this shit evokes is cleansing like a muthafucker. It reminds me of those times in my life where I was headed straight into the fucking fire, the fear, the fight. I...

I've never made any attempt at hiding my arousal for instrumental music. After having been in band upon band upon band, I always seemed to appreciate the unabashed joy I felt when there was no attempt at vocalizing anything. When communication took a turn for the jam and all of our eyes locked onto each others, it was almost an invitation to communicate by merely shutting the Fuck up and letting whatever instrument you were manning do the communicating for you. Many times you'd look to your bandmate and his eyes would be closed, or staring off into space, or to the floor, and you could assume at that particular time it was completely acceptable to go wherever it is you left off in your subconscious last. Some of my favorite musical memories from some of the largest shows I've ever...

Don't let the aeordynamics of my cool lead you to believe I didn't have a 90s grunge fetish bro. Along with the rock and roll of my dad's generation, the plaid shirted and solemn angst of Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Green Day, Stone Temple Pilots, Silverchair and the like molded the musical preferences I have today. I was into anything that required my complete attention, anything that made me want to plan complete fucking road trips around just doing the song justice. As a guy who listens to music just to feel something, there are immediate aspects of any genre'd independent music that either perk my interest or completely disconnect me. Allusondrugs immediately hit me as a smooshwich of my favorite late teens/early twenties rock. It's the shit I can imagine myself sitting with...

I've spent more evenings in my backyard this summer than the past few summers combined. Call it cooler than unbearable this year. Call it a reason to inebriate a couple 100 mosquitoes. Call it a pregnant wife and her DVR schedule. Call it suburbia in your mid-thirties is exactly what it sounds like. Out here where the ants march time narrows. Friends narrow. Opinions narrow. Fuck yous escalate in fresh family photos placed over memories of a more memorable you. This summer seems about survival and I have never been able to endure backyard activity without music. Those who can are inhospitable monsters called neighbors. I see 'em through the fences grilling their sausage in silence. Watering weeds in polo shirts and pleated shorts. Yelling at their kids for asking to play catch. They're...

There is a fine line between relaxing and boring. Maybe this is the reason reggae came along with its funky offbeats... to keep people awake while they relaxed. And while Bahamas is not by any means reggae, it has that vibe: Bahamas is reading a book by yourself lounging next to a body of water. Bahamas is catching yourself in that moment when you realize that you are feeling no stress. Bahamas is unashamedly drinking a drink that includes a paper umbrella. Bahamas is a soul massage with copious amounts of herbal scented lube. Bahamas is diving into a crisp pool, that is so still, it could double as a mirror. If you are new to Bahamas, let me catch you up. Bahamas is Afie Jurvanen...hence the name of his third LP. His second album, Barchords came out a couple of years ago and he...

I'm just going to flat out say it: I didn't expect to like this album. Spoon is a killer band. I was obsessed with them the moment their sound penetrated my virgin Spoon earz 10 years ago. Britt Daniels' voice is unmistakeable and their simplicity is unmistakeable. All the songs are SO dependent on that rhythm. I'm not sure if there is another band out there better at beefing up a simple drum beat with the use of the staple rock band instruments and making 3 to 4 minutes of enjoyable music. But what I love about Spoon, for some reason or another, does not get me excited for their new shit. I'm continually asking myself: How far can they take this formula? Can they mix it up enough to make my ears interested again? After I was let down by their last album, Transference, I thought I was...

First song. At the 1:55 mark exactly bro. The fucking guitar solo FELL OUT OF THIS BAND BRO. The first time I heard that little feel fall from bro's fingering fingers my interest immediately went from "heh, deec" to "bro, I need to rewind 5 seconds to make sure I felt what I fink I felt". After confirming that I had, indeed, managed to feel what I figured I'd felt, I almost owed a gambling debt to the band just to allow the rest of the album to get me on board completely. GITAR are fucking everything. With nothing to expect, and knowing none of the other bands the guys in this band have either played with, been themselves, or acted as touring pyrotechnician with, all of a sudden I'm fucking giddy for the fucking picture these shitshits paint on Active Cultures. GITAR just throw...

I'd like to think that i'm hip to the pulse of the music scene.....except when it comes to music I'm supposed to know about. Songs that my parents friends know about. Or even songs that my kids know about. Yet I'm in my own world seeking out 'cutting edge music nobody has ever heard of'....whatever the Fuck that means. When I first heard Sia; I immediately knew this is probably an artist I should know about. I got that feeling that if it already hasn't blown up the radio...it was only a matter of time because it sounded like a perfect concoction of Rhianna and Katy Perry. Oddly, as I later started looking into Sia Furler, I learned that she wrote songs for Rhianna and Katy Perry. So at least my head was in the right place! Oh and did I mention that she has collaborated with (per Wikipedia...

Blunted. It's the first thing that came to my mind while bumping Smoke Filled Rooms by Graves 33. I had mostly understood Graves 33 to be a rapper out of the Northwest. I was surprised to find him to be a more-than-capable beastronaut. When Graves 33 isn't rapping, he's cooking up some chilled-out, methodical meditators. This is the kind of instrumental hip hop record that should have you breaking out your McGuyver manual on how to connect a gas mask to your three-footer. Create a smoke-filled room, you hotboxing little fucker, you. Go to fucking lalaland with this one. Give yourself a Dude Lebowski moment. Because you fucking deserve it. In addition to Graves' generous offering of 16 tracks for ten bucks… he also has thrown in the non-exclusive rights to use his beats over your...