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...
WHO: Personality Cult WHAT: New Arrows WHY: New Arrows is nothing new but it’s got that sound that I happen to absolutely love. It’s raw, fast, poppy, and full of guitars. I’m not quite sure how Personality Cult mastermind Ben Carr did it, but he figured out a way to distill a buzzpop album down to the essentials. Of course, a good way to do that is to let the Marked Men influence you a bit. You don’t have to...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Summer Bliss and Autumn Tears LP by Steven Bradley. Especially considering the low cost and high quality of digital recording platforms, it has become incredibly easy for every aspiring musician to make the album of their dreams. My intention is not to disparage or downplay any artist’s talent or creative aspirations, I’m just saying that it’s cheap and easy to make a record in the twenty-first century; the thing that isn’t...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Holger Danske LP by The Old Firm Casuals. After a solid amount of time up on blocks (the band’s debut album was released in 2014 and, while there have been a couple of splits and a couple of EPs, demands for something more substantial have gone unanswered), a recent reissue campaign renewed interest in The Old Firm Casuals (a.k.a. Singer/guitarist Lars Frederiksen’s “other” band, beyond Rancid) and so they’ve answered that...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Finally Free LP by Daniel Romano. After first appearing in front of a hardcore band about fourteen years ago, Daniel Romano has taken personal delight in jumping from music genre to music genre with an impunity which proved to be incredibly infectious. From hardcore to folk to country to rock and innumerable hybrids of all those sounds, Romano has proven to have a golden touch almost as pure as David Bowie’s...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Bela Sessions 12” reissue by Bauhaus. In order to really appreciate just exactly how radical Bauhaus was in the early stages of their career, one must recognize what they did seemingly as a matter of course – how different it was from everything else, and how boldly the band did it from day one. The group’s first release, the “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” single, is an ideal illustration of that difference; in...
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...
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...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “Mass Apathy” 12” single by NOi!SE. It might not sound like the single most glowing endorsement of a single on the surface, but the first thing that NOi!SE’s new, milled “Mass Apathy” single illustrates is that it’s never wise to underestimate a novelty, or write one off. The bullet casing silhouettes which encircle the exterior rim of this one-sided single (the B-side features a silkscreen but no music) look neat and...