REVIEWS

As most any fan of Eighties and Nineties underground rock can tell you, the creative soil of the time was very fertile but the labels which tended it always carefully ensured that any artist they collected from it always fit within their very specific image. The handpicked stable that Alternative Tentacles kept, for example, was a group of very intelligent maniacs who regularly took a confrontational stace as they attempted to expand their audience’s minds. Conversely, Sub Pop’s crew of...

At the beginning of February the groundhog told us that winter is fake and summer is real. This is probably in lieu of global warming. Some states experience a very summery winter – states like Florida. With the inspiration of forever summer comes upbeat pop with an experimental synth-y sound in Animal Collective’s tenth studio album Painting With released on February 19th, 2016. While band member Deakin is still M.I.A (he was also absent from 2009’s Merriweather Post Pavilion), Avery...

A new article by our Finnish Correspondent, Suvi Jyrinki This time I picked up an older album: Tilinteon hetki by Timo Rautiainen & Trio Niskalaukaus, issued in 2004. The band has officially split up in 2006, but the power of their music has still remained. Timo Rautiainen played with Trio Niskalaukaus in years 1996-2004. Despite the name there was always four or five men, instead of just three, playing along with the singer. This band was one of the first...

23 Live Sex Acts (Total Treble) There’s no easy way to review an Against Me album anymore; well, not in the conventional sense, anyway. Everyone knows why, so why no talk about it? It’s not easy to review an Against Me! album anymore because Tom Gabel was replaced on the mic by Laura Jane Grace. Does that really make so great a difference? It shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t; the catch has everything to do with the gift...

As a child, I hated surprises. It was pure torture to know that you don’t know what you thought you knew and as a child know-it-all, this frustrated me. But this past Friday, Say Anything surprised me and all their fans. How? Surprise album! Unexpectedly, the band released their 7th studio album “I Don’t Think It Is” on Equal Vision Records. Their audience of grown-up punks woke up to find another consistently good album released by their favorite band of the...

Continuing our exploration of heavy metal music in Finland, here is a new review by our Finnish correspondent, Suvi Jyrinki. XII – Kouvostomolli by Viikate (=scythe in Finnish) could not have come out at any better time now that I needed something for just floating in mercilessly dark bittersweet moods and being aware of how ridiculous it is. The Finnish band Viikate has been around since 1996 and their music combines metal with 1960s instrumental rock. That´s why this band...

A Raw Youth CD by Le Butcherettes Ipecac Recordings Reviewed by G. Murray Thomas Teri Gender Bender is my new rock star crush, following Patti Smith, Deborah Harry, and Shirley Manson. They are all beautiful (in unique ways), but more important, they all have attitude. Just as their beauty is individual, so is their attitude. Smith’s is expressed in a hardcore stare, daring you to deny her her place at the table with Keith, Jim, and Jimi. Harry’s is a...

Dave Hill Let Me Turn You On (Aspecialthing/Allegro) Hold onto your seat because this album came completely out of nowhere! But, now that I’m aware of Dave Hill, the guy seems to pop up everywhere. Like, he hosts a show on WFMU and he plays in the band who wrote the theme song to John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. Also, did you know he’s Cleveland’s pride and joy? Also, he’s a comedian and this is his first comedy album. But...

He Never Died – Film Review Storyline: “Jack’s in a rut. Depression and severe anti-social behavior has whittled down his existence to sleeping and watching television. Seeing the human race as little more than meat with a pulse, Jack has no interest to bond with anyone. There’s little purpose for him to make friends with someone he’d eventually eat or outlive by more than a millennia. The fuse is lit when Jack’s past comes back to rattle him. Jack must...

Slash Raised On The Subset Strip Blu-Ray (Shout Factory) Historians and critics may curse Raised on the Sunset Strip for presenting a documentary which features some pretty plainly revisionist history of the 1980s L.A. rock scene in general and Guns N’ Roses in specific, but there’s no way to deny that the film tells a really interesting story – at least at first. It is, of course, the story of Saul “Slash” Hudson and the series of events which made...