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...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Night Guy at The Apocalypse, Profiles of a Rushing Midnight LP by Hamell On Trial. In the spirit of full disclosure, yes -I am a fan of Hamell On Trial. I was totally won over by Ed Hamell when the singer’s eighth album, Tough Love, came out in 2003 and have excitedly checked and weighed) in and given consistently positive coverage to each album that has come along since then. I...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Things Change LP by American Aquarium. Usually when I’m reviewing vinyl records, I try to present my thoughts in a linear manner – from front to back, A-side through B-. In my mind, it just makes sense; unlike on CDs (where it’s really easy to jump around from song to song as a listener likes), records play best song-by-song and bands usually go out of their way to take that into...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Karma For Cheap LP by Aaron Lee Tasjan. The single greatest problem from which Karma For Cheap (and it’s auteur, Aaron Lee Tasjan, by extension) suffers is that it’s just too polished and the the seams on it are too air-tight. For that reason, it’s difficult for listeners to not meet the music with more than a little bit of suspicion. This is precisely the same problem from which artists like...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Nude Party’s self-titled album. As one listens to The Nude Party’s self-titled album, it’s instantly easy to pick out some sounds and ideas which may have inspired the music, but not so easy to figure out how all the pieces might have aligned to produce this result. For example, the haunting keyboards which color the songs on The Nude Party sound as though they might have been inspired by Shadowy Men...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Arthur Buck’s self-titled debut album. Full honesty and disclosure: I’ve been a really big fan of R.E.M. for a really long time and approached Arthur Buck’s self-titled debut album with no small amount of trepidation. I didn’t want to risk sullying my memory of Peter Buck – but it turns out I needn’t have worried. In fact, by crossing Buck’s instantly recognizable guitar tone (which, let’s be honest, helped inspire almost an...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Flaming Lips’ Greatest Hits Volume 1 LP. As a general rule, I must confess that Best-Of compilations seldom thrill me. While the odd set does prove to be the rule’s exception (like Nirvana’s black album, the set that Morphine released several years ago, ChangesoneBowie, Hot Rocks and All For Nothing/Nothing For All turned out to all be great sets) and which does present the band in question at its best, most...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the This American Blues LP by Ford Madox Ford. Remember a couple of decades ago when, against some fairly long odds, The Blasters managed to cross-wire punk rock and Americana/roots music? The results were pretty cool – the group actually did manage to break onto the popular radar for a minute (with some help from Quentin Tarantino and the soundtrack from From Dusk Til Dawn), but basically remained pretty niche because punk...