Album Reviews

Sometimes my heart has to tell my brain to stop being a dick and to look at the big picture. You know, like refusing to drink tequila when you are 35 years old because of that one time in college you had too many upside down margaritas? Tequila is great, bro. Don't let that one time cloud your judgement. Apparently, in my fucked up mind releasing an outstanding single off of a to be released album is a catch 22 because it places unfair expectations upon a band and an album. The better the song...the higher the unreasonable expectations....the more critical my judgement. SO, when Strand Of Oaks released (arguably) the best song of the summer 'Goshen '97' it was clouding my judgement and warping my expectations. For some reason, I thought every other track on the new album Heal should sound...

If you have your head out of your ass you recall me dropping knowledge on your tits and dicks with my review of Air Dubai’s Wonder Age. Since then the dudes have signed with Hopeless Records and been touring all over the country breaking hearts and dicking down your girlfriends (probably). They recently landed a spot on the Warped Tour so hit that up if you haven’t already. In the midst of that tour Air Dubai has released their first record on the new label, Be Calm. The first album for Hopeless is anything but hopeless. These bros waste no time in getting straight to the party with “All Day.” “But we still got girls to call, and I still got time to waste, so let's pour some alcohol, we can do this all day” If you’re wondering who is dropping that vocalized sex on the hook that’s...

My five year old and I have season passes to the nearest expensive water park because I stabbed his extra-large little kid blow-up pool to death last fall. So to me, $100 passes compared to the $30 daily fee scene is not only penny-wise, but hopefully healing whatever happens to you after witnessing a shadowy figure bludgeon your kid pool with a grill fork. "Dad... when we cookout tonight, we're not gonna turn those Tiki Torches on are we? Are we dad?" "No. No, of course not. Why would we do that!?" "Good, because remember last time when that man came and broke my pool. Right? Remember? I couldn't see him really because it wasn't like, bright enough with just the Tiki Torches on... Right? Remember?" "Yeah buddy, don't worry about that guy... You have water park passes now. Besides, maybe...

In my head, the place where secrets go to wither, hanging on to the vine of a low IQ, at least once-a-day I experience what I've dubbed the "Judd Nelson Rebel-Unity-Underdog-Sunset Fist Pump Of Temporary Social Victory." I used to want a "Breakfast Club" kind of life: Filled with discovery, governed by no one, immune to Monday. That daydream died the day I paid my first utility bill; it became not only obsolete, but a distraction from what mattered. Namely: Paying bills and being "boring." In this 'Fog of War' (my jocular term of endearment for domesticity), it is an uncomplicated task to altogether lose sight of my daydream's headstone. Often times I'm guided back by bits of 8-bit beauty, but this recently-passed twelve-month session it's been the windswept whine of Savage Sister's Chloe...

Kejnu holds a special place in the syffal sternum bros. They were one of the first bands as a syffaler that I contacted and said “You don’t know who I am, but I found your music, and I want to tell you it is fucking amazing and I want to thank you for existing”, which then led to an album review, an interview, but then an awkwardly awesome friendship that's been stretching thousands of miles was erected, and it's still quite erect. These fuckers live in some bork country in the middle of borkistan, sure, but to them I live in the middle of the great devil on the corner of standard american diet and big pharma, right down the street from entitlement high school and honey boo boo. Everything is relative when we’re talking about living life as life living livers, but people are people are...

Fiona Apple, Adele, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, the Queen of England, Norah Jones, fucking…Madonna. They can all eat shit. Ok I like those other artists so they can stop eating shit now. Andrea Dawn is that new new and I'm here to tell you about her. She is talented bro. Seriously draw a bubble bath, light some candles, and sip some champagne to this Andrea Dawn album, Doll. This is sentimental music bro. It touches all the feelz in their special spot. Sometimes you just have to go there though ya know? I like to go there and Andrea Dawn makes me want to live there. Her voice is as humid as a swampy summer day in the bayou. Then you get blasted in the face with ice cold air conditioning that is solid instrumentation on tracks like “Tameable.” I don't want to insinuate that “All...

Phox sort of quietly sauntered into my peripheral thanks to my friend Jeremy Bates. He must've sensed I was lacking in the feels department because it didn't take long for me to completely understand the void that Phox was going to be filling for the foreseeable future. I didn't know I needed a band to listen to while I clutch a teddy bear against my chest and stare longingly into the approaching storm. Phox have given me more moments of pure, goosepimpled, 'small tears in the corner of me eyes' inducing joy than any other band in recent memory. A few of my friends (and my wife) joke that I'm in love with the singer Monica, but what's weird is that I don't feel in love with her like I wanna marry her at allllllllll. No, I want to keep her up on the pedestal where I put Etta James and Beth...

Open Mike Eagle, how do you do it? I know there is a picture of you in a cape and tights somewhere down the semen-stained corridors of the internet. To be riding such a wave of such creativity, such vision, such inspiration must be fucking terrifying! When will the sponge stop dripping it's sweet nectar? Will the next chorus be too out, like way out, like way way out for people? Crafting one's demeanor as effortless, seemingly just seamlessly being so fucking innovative, all that wavy makes me sea sick, bro! Except I know that's total bullshit! Open Mike is the Mike Rowe of the rap game. While other rappers are snorting coke after shows begging for drugs and pussy like slightly comical but mostly sad, super sad fiends…Mike is back home in bed propped up on a pillow wearing glasses and...

N8NOFACE is the love child of They Might Be Giants, Kid Frost, and Prince. His new album DOLOTAPE is a sensual mix of weirdness that provides the perfect soundtrack for the kind of night that ends with your soul-mate in handcuffs while you are bleeding from your midsection. Something went horribly wrong but to get there everything must have been going incredibly well. N8NOFACE rides that fine line. He is the control in the chaos, the tantric messenger that has you thinking about the back of baseball cards and your grandmother in those black stockings that roll down to her ankles to avoid pre-ejax. DOLOTAPE takes you through all sorts of manic episodes from the comfort of you grey primer 99 Honda Accord. shit bumps with the kind of low-end that makes the olds scared and...

I’ve always had a soft spot for White Sea as Morgan Kibby was my first SYFFAL interview. We talked about her planned LP that was to be the follow up to her splendid EP, This Frontier. That was many many moons ago, December 0f 2010 to be exact. As time passed and passed our collective memory of White Sea’s sound faded I worried that ​the​ album was turning into ​her ​Chinese Democracy. I feared that it would see the light of day ​..or even worse Buckethead would be on it.​ Fast forward to today. Holy Fuck’s Fuck. It’s here and it is no fucking Chinese Democracy. It is her Appetite for Destruction… and her appetite cannot be satiated. She is a god damn Rocket Queen out to take down this big bad world ​ one great track at a time. We are all witnesses. Holy crap this album, you guys....