album

Various Artists – [Album]
REVIEWS

Various Artists God Don’t Never Change (Alligator) It has been said before that the greatest measure of an artist can be found in the list of other individuals who assemble to pay him tribute. If we take that as the truth, it can also be taken as doubtless that Blind Willie Johnson is one of the most important musicians to ever pick up a guitar and play the blues; on God Don’t Never Change, a veritable who’s who collection of...

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Sunday, 12 June 2016
Vinyl Vlog 141
COLUMN

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Ancient Shapes’ self-titled debut LP. While Daniel Romano has found great success exposing his Country & Western inspirations over the last few years (both 2011’s Sleep Beneath The Willows and 2013’s Come Cry With Me got longlisted for the Polaris Music Prize in those respective years), it’s refreshing and relieving to hear that the singer has elected to turn up and speed up for the new project he has called Ancient Shapes....

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Thursday, 09 June 2016
PUP – [Album]
REVIEWS

PUP The Dream Is Over (Side One Dummy/Universal) Over the last few years, critics have announced the death of rock n’ roll so often that it has become pretty difficult to truly wonder if they’re not right. It gets even harder to not think that maybe – just maybe – there’s no going back either; it is the twenty-first century, after all, and making music on a computer is easy – so why bother picking up a guitar? Are those...

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Thursday, 02 June 2016
The Claypool Lennon Delirium – [Album]
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The Claypool Lennon Delirium Monolith of Phobos (ATO/Cadence Music) Even right on the face of it, a project which features contributions from Les Claypool and Sean Lennon screams intrigue and instant sub-cultural credibility. Lennon has spent the duration of his career riding the fact that he is his father’s son as well as illustrating that his dad’s fine pop songwriting chops really are a genetic gift, while Claypool has spent toe duration of his career illustrating that generic lines –...

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Wednesday, 25 May 2016
Rob Zombie – [Album]
REVIEWS

Rob Zombie The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser (T-Boy/UMe) At first glance, one might assume that everything is just business as usual for Rob Zombie on his sixth solo studio album. Its title, The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser, reads like a compilation of words pulled from the titles of his other albums and seems a little laughable and ridiculous, at first. Likewise, the same could be said of all twelve of the titles...

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Friday, 22 April 2016
Fat White Family – [Album]
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Artist: Fat White Family Album: Songs for Our Mothers Label: Fat Possum Records Isn’t it incredible how, over time, the basic structures of established musics can become re-imagined/re-engineered for no other reason than they’ve become displaced from the time and places they were first developed? The possibility of time and place being so important for something non-corporeal like music may seem like a dubious one but, in listening to Fat White Family’s new album, Songs for Our Mothers, it suddenly...

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Monday, 11 April 2016
Dandy Warhols – [Album]
REVIEWS

  Artist: Dandy Warhols Album: Distortland Label: Dine Alone It’s unlikely that there is any band in rock right now more underrated than the Dandy Warhols. A lot of that has historically had to do with the fact that the band has seemed to go out of its way to throw fans a series of elegant braking balls to confuse and frustrate them; since Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia (a.k.a. “the breakthrough”) came out in 2000, Courtney Taylor-Taylor and company...

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Friday, 08 April 2016
Iggy Pop – [Album]
REVIEWS

Artist: Iggy Pop Album: Post Pop Depression Label: Rekords Rekords/Loma Vista/Universal I must confess that I could not bring myself to review Iggy Pop’s newest album immediately upon its release for personal reasons. Those reasons stemmed from David Bowie and my appreciation for both artists’ music; Bowie and Iggy have shared an unusual, symbiotic relationship for decades (at least, they have in my mind) and, at Bowie’s passing, I wasn’t sure first how Iggy would respond and, second, if I...

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Tuesday, 05 April 2016
The Rubens – [Album]
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Artist: The Rubens Album: Hoops Label: Warner Brothers Do you know the reason why the catbird is able to immitate other bird and animal sounds, reader? It’s actually a defense mechanism: catbirds want to either blend in with their surroundings and not get noticed by potential predators, or imitate a sound which will scare potential predators away. The catbird’s abilities come to mind when one thinks about The Rubens too; on first listen, it’s easy for listeners to melt into...

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Friday, 01 April 2016
Greg Laswell – [Album]
REVIEWS

Artist: Greg Laswell Album: Everyone Thinks I Dodged A Bullet Label: Vanguard/Concord Both the joy and peril of music and attempting to explain how or why it’s good to someone else can often be found in the language employed to accomplish the act. It’s strange how it can work sometimes; like some words and combinations of them sound exciting but, when one really attempts to break it all down, it quickly becomes confusing. For example (and this word appears predominantly...

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Wednesday, 23 March 2016