A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Take The Light With You LP by Wildlife. Sometimes the arrival of a record doesn’t bring with it a spectacular introduction – in fact, it would be easy enough to overlook some albums completely on the wrong day – but those albums can sneak up on you, win your heart and capture your imagination if your back is turned and are otherwise engaged. That’s precisely what happened to this critic when...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 12” UV digitally printed “Lost” single by Noi!se. For novelty’s sake, let’s address all of the obvious potential talking points to be found about Noi!se’s UV Digitally printed 12” “Lost” single. Yes, it looks really, really cool. Yes, I think that stranding a three-and-a-half-minute song all alone on a 12” vinyl record is a questionable use of resources, regardless of how cool it looks. Yes, the quality of the graphics on...
Wild Flowers of AmericaLost in the Salvation Army The Best Show giveth and giveth. I’ve always respected Tom Scharplin’s music taste. And as host of the Best Show I knew that when he would air his grievances about a band (which would be constantly), the man knew what he talked about. On one of my regular weekly listen, Scharpling played the opening track of Lost in the Salvation Army and I was hooked right away. I had to find this...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Territories’ When The Day Is Done 10” EP Work in the press long enough, and eventually one begins to rely on the complications that one finds with a release, because the difficulties in qualifying or quantifying the sound of an album (and the media – for that matter) become the fuel for for what makes that release good or not and why. It’s actually a really easy cheat which, now that I’ve...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the vinyl reissue of Wonderful by Circle Jerks. Easily the most underrated hardcore band since the genre’s inception in the early Eighties has been the Circle Jerks. The reason that claim is so easy to make is that, pound-for-pound and album-for-album, they broke a surprising amount of ground that a lot of bands would tread upon (and make a lot more money from) later. When the band first appeared with Group Sex...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Slackers’ 12″ UV digitally printed vinyl single. Ignoring the, “Gee whiz!” quality of The Slackers’ new single as well as the talking point of, “Well, this is a new way of combining digital and analogue formats into one release,” (rather than being pressed, this release is UV digitally printed vinyl) it needs to be pointed...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP Deluxe Edition reissue of Sirens of the Ditch by Jason Isbell. It’s pretty uncommon for me to wonder where I was when I review a reissue of an album which was originally released after 2002 (a.k.a. The year I joined the press). That is not to say there weren’t great albums that I didn’t get my hands my hands on to review them when they were new, it’s simply something...
Beastie BoysPaul’s Boutiquephoto: turntablelab.com I don’t know if the Beastie Boys get too much credit or not enough. One thing’s for sure, they’re not spoken about too much among the current mainstream rapper greats. Of course, that’s kind of a misnomer: mainstream rap isn’t really great. And as a Beastie Boys fan, that suits me just fine. Sophomore albums really define a band, don’t they? That first album can make as big an impact as you want, but if you’re...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the The Pain, The Blood and The Sword LP by Lion’s Law. There’s a certain comfort which can be found in a record which, while new, sounds familiar. As albums like that play, it can be pretty easy for a listener to sigh as a turntable’s stylus finds its intended groove and each cut seems to spontaneously align and produce an accessible, pleasing sensation for its audience. Now, in the case of...
CzarfaceThe Odds Czar Against Us Sometimes, as a music fan, things happen that can only be described as magic. We’re going through a vinyl revolution (or a vinyl bubble, depending on how you want to look at it), but we’re not going through a record store revolution. People are glad they can collect just about everything on vinyl (even the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack on llama color), but they’re not very interested in visiting their local record store. I would know,...