A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the The Spark That Moves LP by Cancer Bats When a band gets six albums deep into their career, history has illustrated that one of two things happens: either the group releases a career-defining album, or they release the worst shit shingle in their catalogue. For every British Steel, Iron Fist, Machine Head, Divine Intervention or Sound of White Noise, there are also albums like Somewhere In Time, Take A Look In...
ThoroughbredsOriginal Motion Picture Soundtrack by Mondo Tees The great thing about the movie soundtrack vinyl revolution (for lack of a better word) is that it’s not just allowing for the appreciation of an underrated art form and the reissue of long forgotten music, but also that it’s given the small guys a chance. Maybe no movie deserved the title of underdog last year more than Thoroughbreds, which was ambitious, dark, hilarious, and tragically underrated. And who would have guessed that...
A Quiet Place Original Score Marco Baltrami (Mondo Tees) I love rooting for the little guy and so should you. Though A Quiet Place isn’t exactly a sleeper hit, it did start out from humble beginnings. Sure, a $17 million budget sounds like a lot, but it made twenty times that in the box office. Compare it to Black Panther and Avengers Infinity War which were the big hits of the year and cost $200 and $300 million, and that...
Adventure TimeCome Along With Me(Mondo Tees) Kudos to Adventure Time for figuring it out. And by it I mean IT. It was a show that everyone could enjoy, because it was simplistic in its design but deep in content. It can be appreciated both at a superficial level, as the adventures of Finn and Jake living in a fantasy world, or as an exploration of human nature. The show moved quickly and looked great while doing it. It told funny...
Marc MaronToo Real How’s the comedy bubble? Has it burst yet? Sure, for comedy fans, the comedy bubble was a godsent, bringing in a new crop of comedians who pushed the envelope and freshened things up a bit. That much was clear. But another thing that’s clear is that people are as unfunny as ever. That being said, it’s worth mentioning that most standup comedy is unfunny. Maybe I’m a curmudgeon, but the in-your-face high octane comedy with shiny powerpoint...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Guide Me Back Home 3LP by City and Colour. I must confess that most regularly, live albums don’t thrill me. City and Colour albums do not often thrill me either, for that matter (long story short, while I was a big fan of Alexisonfire back in the day, I found the first two City and Colour albums staggeringly overwrought); I don’t know that I’d call my distaste for the band absolute...
Talib KweliRadio Silence In a way, Talib Kweli will never get his due, and that’s just fine. By that, I mean that he should be ten times more popular than he is right now. He’s got everything you’d want in good music: talent, execution, wit, intellect, and a message. But unfortunately, that’s not synonymous with mainstream rap. Nope. Mainstream rap is all about image, excess, money, and fame. Like MF Doom said, the reason he wears a mask is to...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into EP by Dad Brains. Now over forty years since it first appeared, it was inevitable that punk rock was probably going to take on something that resembled a fatherly voice, somehow. How could it not? With Green Day having made concept records already and both Fat Mike Burkett and Mike Watt having produced punk rock opera albums, punk and its pillars have already begun taking on “grown up projects” (or at least...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Spencer Sings The Hits LP by Jon Spencer. That the fidelity, equalization and overall sound found on a vinyl recording is unmatched by any other musical mediumto date is a claim which has been proven several times over in many place by a great many people (including by several in this column, several times over too), and one of the great examples can be found on a vinyl copy of Spencer...
Dog Party Hit & Run Listening to Dog Party brought back some sweet memories from my college days. Days when I first starting getting into the Ramones. I had been exposed to punk rock in high school and it made a lasting impression but it was only in college that I started doing my homework and learning the basics. NOFX only takes you so far, after all. So, listening to the Ramones consisted of a pattern that’s all too familiar...