Album Reviews

Ah yes, the state of Florida. "Come visit!" the elderly coo. Where else can you gorge on early bird specials at the overwhelmingly mammoth number of Shoney's clones? Why not follow up your late-afternoon feast with a heaping pile of over-prescribed painkillers? COME ON OUT TO DISNEYLAND AND TOP THINGS OFF WITH A SHANKING BY TONY MONTANA HIMSELF! Florida, I want nothing to do with you, however, I will briefly commend you for being the spawning grounds of death metal during much of the 80's and 90's. Somehow your fetid landscape has managed to generate famous acts like like Cannibal Corpse, Cynic, Atheist, Morbid Angel, and most notably, Death. The band Death is a criminally underexposed forefather of modern extreme music. They had a good run, pioneered much of what is contemporary death...

I remember my first Budos Band show. I showed up with about 7 friends and after the first three minutes I managed to squeeze my way up front at Darkroom in Chicago by myself, and I stayed there for hours. I remember the dim red lights, the guitar player's beard, the guy with the big sax's frosted tips, and then after that it's all horns, sweat and moving around with my eyes closed. I've become a fiend for that vibe of it being 10pm, I have all night, and I'm slowly making my way through a packed club with two drinks in my hands held over the heads of the throngs of people I'm oozing my way through. When you were young and didn't know any better, it was a Corona evening. But once you learned what horse piss tastes like with a lime, well you wise the fuck up and grab a Zombie Dust and enjoy...

Danny Brown can rap his ass off; there is no question about that. He is one of a handful of up and coming rappers that are making exciting rap music that shows an adherence to skills without sucking the dick of the past. It is a very refreshing approach to rap music. With the release of XXX we find Danny Brown at the height of his powers. His strained, semi high pitched voice works perfectly over the dank production featured throughout the album, which often sounds like the evolutionary version of the prime years of underground hip hop, taking the lessons of the era's successes and avoiding the heavy handed pitfalls that often accompanied the music. One of the things that I find most appealing about Danny Brown is that he manages to flip numerous styles without sounding like he...

I'm lazy. Rather than describe how a band sounds through the use of adjectively adjectives I prefer to compare them to two or three bands that the general public may be more familiar with. If I'm able to throw in a delicious sexually procreating metaphor then I have my done my job to the fullest. The Yellowbirds are a project of Sam Cohen and I hate Sam Cohen for making me push my use of adjectives, similes, and metaphors to the limit. I can't compare Cohen's multi-genre sound to other bands because it seems that his influences are as vast as Pamela Anderson's vagina. At times I want to say that Cohen is the long lost member of the Traveling Wilburys, or that his psychedelic style channels the Byrds, or that he brings warmth to songs that is only rivaled by the Fleet...

The Year of Hibernation is the first album that made me want to rap since Ghostface Killah's Supreme Clientele, which is kind of weird considering that Youth Lagoon and in turn The Year of Hibernation couldn't be farther from a rap album if it tried. Still whenever I listen to it I find myself kicking the same freestyle raps I have been holding onto for the past 17 years of shower rapping and driving rapping. My guess is that it has something to do with the drums. The drums on this album are just so exciting. Shifting yet steady the drum pattern awareness is keen and crisp. It helps that all of The Year of Hibernation's tracks slowly build and morph, swirling around creating a cacophony of delicious sounds that one can't help but get caught up in. There is...

Post-rock is one of my vices. I yearn for air guitar solos and air drum solos while I myself am solo. I play riffs in my head during my daily mundane tasks. I imagine myself a long-haired gentleman and toss the head to and fro and fro and to and neck pain be damned, I love it. There is nothing like finding a band you adore musically and making it a part of your daily soundtrack. And So I Watch You From Afar have been on Tim and I's "always" list for years but their latest, which has been out for a while now, has gone undiscussed in our daily gab sessions. While we tend to share pretty much anything (like our disdain for sewage baths and Ted Dibiase), we've both been pretty hush about our adoration of And So I Watch You From Afar's latest album, Gangs. It's privately one of the...

I had a friend in high school that was constantly listening to The Everly Brothers. Like the first time I almost saw her bewbs she was singing Kathy's Clown. And the second time I almost saw her bewbs I was singing Kathy's Clown trying to get her to accidentally slip a bewb. I grew a fondness for the peaceful childhood simplicity that those old Everly songs made me feel. I always associate my great aunt's basement with that same type of feeling, in addition to Miss American Pie out of a huge wooden turn dial radio, playing pool without being able to see over the pool table, and that fridge in the corner that always had a shitload of Christmas cookies no matter what time of year it was. The Coasts and their self titled album boast a similar simplicity that is heavy with sadness, but...

A few years ago I was listening to Adeem describe the sound he was looking for to his GLUE-producer Maker. Basically, he was telling a beat-maker that he wanted a simple tambourine. Imagine the look on his face when he repeated himself a second time. "You just want a tambourine?" Maker asks with his arms crossed. "Yeah." Adeem replies. *CRICKETS* Adeem wasn't kidding. Nor was he being facetious. He was hinting towards a bare bones attempt at incorporating blues, folk and gospel into a hip hop record. And while that wouldn't work in a indie-rap-powerhouse-trio such as GLUE (Maker and DQ are respectively some of the best in their fields, as is Adeem who can order fast food faster than they can make it), it didn't leave his miniature and adorable little brains. Here we are in 2011 and Adeem...

I've been spending most of my days leisurely clicking youtube links, pressing "play" on randomly selected video threads on message boards (feel my flava, ho) and downloading the occasional mediafire-hosted zipped archive, looking for anything that tickles my proverbial fancy that isn't named Joel. Small obsessions come and go (hi, Weeknd, nice to have you over for the past 3 weeks straight). "Like" is clicked and musical trains roll on, gingerly chugging towards the next stop. That is until you approach a hobo encampment and hear the faint sounds of Onyx-esque screaming building in intensity as you come closer to the burning trash can in which the mc in Death Grips is huddling around as he warms his hands on the flames that are now melting your face with musical awesomeness. Replace the...

This might be my semi-educated and highly reactionary mind at work here, but I think Here We Go Magic is poised to be the biggest band in the world. They are un-fucking-real. I have never listened to a band that seemed to be a perfect fit whatever the fuck I am doing. Every song manages to fit every situation. It is uncanny; these sons of bitches are either inside my head or have managed to harness the very core of existence with their music. Every song is brilliantly written, complex without being alienating, jam-packed with feeling and feel, and totally endearing. This is not just a commentary on the January EP, it is the entirety of their catalogue, and the January EP just continues this tradition of excellence. They are like Al Davis before he turned all Walking Dead...