album

WHO: Jon Spencer WHAT: Songs of Personal Loss and Protest WHY: With his new backing band, Jon Spencer has injected some youth and vigor into his already-explosive musical style. His first full album with this lineup has the energy and humor of the old Blues Explosion but brought up to date. Spencer sticks to the garage while giving a callback to the style of old blues and R&B singers with a cheeky commentary on the issues of today. You won’t...

Steve Gunn Daylight Daylight I just can’t help but make fun of lethargic, precious, and gentle music. I don’t want my music to be loud all the time, but the adoration of “quiet” music is definitely a cult. It’s like that Portlandia sketch with the Battle of the Quiet Bands. I just don’t have patience for that shit, but then I hear Steve Gunn and I go into some serious doubt. His music is definitely in a more serene category,...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Bass Drum Of Death’s “Live… And Let Die” LP. Even on first glance at the cover of “Live… And Let Die“, I began to get excited. The cover of the album reminded me of so many other live albums I’d seen before; with a black and white photo and an arguably trite title, the album instantly calls to mind similarities to live albums by bands like Aerosmith, Judas Priest, The Black Keys,...

WHO: X WHAT: Smoke & Fiction WHY: Let’s round up the week with more X, shall we? It’s easy to point at bands that are still going and overstaying their welcome, but X certainly isn’t that. On Smoke & Fiction, the band shows they can still create inspiring and relevant music even at the end of their career. This album not only sounds like X, strutting and shimmying past rockabilly and punk rock, but it also sounds great: crisp and...

Sarah De Valliere The Healing (independent) The Healing is one of the most beautiful albums I have heard in a long time. De Valliere’s vocals and piano are sweet and lush. Her melodies caress the ears. The music is soulful pop, with touches of blues and jazz, as well as orchestral flourishes. The recording is exquisite; every instrument is clear and crisp. More important, it leaves you feeling beautiful. This is not just an album about healing, as the title...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Drowns’ Blacked Out LP. While the number of ways that a band may choose to change their sound in the name of refreshing it or updating it are almost innumerable, what The Drowns have done on Blacked Out is genuinely impressive. This time out, the band has left most of the punk and hardcore are forms that the band has been developing and refining over the last few years behind and...

Son Henry & T. Rogers Band Grace (Twang House Records) In 2009, American blues musician and lap steel virtuoso Son Henry arrived at a music festival in Estonia with only his lap steel. The rest of his equipment was stuck at Heathrow Airport, where it remained for six months. He was rescued by T. Rogers band, “a group of mad Hungarians,” as he put it. They loaned him equipment and gave him stage time. A lifelong connection was established. Ten...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Dwarves’ Concept Album LP. To say that The Dwarves have been around and weathered a lot of pop cultural storms is an understatement. Since forming in Chicago in the mid-Eighties, The Dwarves have reinvented the concept of the revolving door; they’ve gone through band members (dozens of them – but guitarist Pete “HeWhoCannotBeNamed” Vietnamecheque and singer Paul “Blag Dahlia” Cafaro are the group’s core members), record labels (at least five) and...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Kepi and Friends – Full Moon Forever LP by Kepi Ghoulie. After having already reviewed Kepi Ghoulie’s “other” album released this year (the Ramones In Love LP), I can say with regret that I approached Ghoulie’s output this annum in the wrong order. Full Moon Forever is a really good album which features covers of songs by bands like The Cure, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, The Cars and the Jesus and...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the ; ) LP by The Shouldies. It’s uncommon enough an occurrence that one can never hope to count on it, but sometimes an album comes along at precisely the moment a listener needs to hear it. In my own case, I’ve been listening to a surprising amount of very moody, very texturally-centered music lately; things like The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode’s Ultra and Psalm 69 by Ministry...