A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Sleeping Through The War LP by All Them Witches. They might not actually be from the desert (in fact they’re from Nashville, TN), but that doesn’t mean All Them Witches haven’t channelled the heat, aridity and all the weirdness normally associated such a landscape and front-loaded it onto their fourth full-length album, Sleeping Through The War. This time though, no introductions get made (none are really necessary – the band had...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Good Night Tomorrow LP by NEEDLES//PINS. Such occurrences are rare, but sometimes all the tumblers align and a band doesn’t just produce the best damned music of its career, that music happens to get released in just the right place at the right time that the music catches a large amount of attention. There are too many variables at work to try and plan something like that; it pretty much has...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Unclean 7” by Tough Age. After they’ve gone through all three songs which comprise Tough Age’s new Unclean 7”, listeners may find that they need to take a moment and collect themselves – I certainly did. I needed to step back and collect myself because I had no particular desire to just spill ink and compliments all over a page; true, all three songs are great and effortlessly called out the...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the vinyl reissue of the Labyrinth soundtrack by David Bowie and Trevor Jones. While his career was characterized by no small number of unusual events, arguably the greatest concentration of weirdness about David Bowie’s career can be found in the 1980s. Within those ten fateful years, Bowie released albums which have come to be regarded as some of his finest (Let’s Dance was the album which broke the singer into the Top...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “Freeze Me” flexi-disc by Death From Above. It might not really need saying, but listening to the new flexi-disc from Death From Above really reiterates what a creatively fertile period the last few years have been for the group. The appearance of The Physical World in 2013 marked the beginning of a new era for the band; on that album, the group better developed their sound so it functioned well beyond...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Family Hangover LP by Walrus. When one considers Walrus’ debut LP, Family Hangover, the first stumbling block which comes up is where the music came from. As one listens, it quickly becomes easy to pick out little bits of ideas which were obviously originally the work of artists who initially inspired the band and, because those stylistic breadcrumbs are so easy to spot, one will quickly begin to wonder just how...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Vine LP by Jen Gloeckner. Anyone who has ever gone to therapy knows that it can take years to accurately qualify, articulate and compartmentalize feelings like anger, resentment, isolation, love, affection, confusion and emotional unease and then begin to deal with them in a healthy manner. It’s all a process and, in that regard, Jen Gloeckner has arrived miles ahead of the game on her third album, Vine; after having slugged...
Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night by Jason Zinoman If you’re a fan of comedy you’re going to have to answer the following question at some point: are you a Leno or Letterman person. I’ve always been a Letterman guy, even when I was unaware of the whole Late Night battle. In high school, we just didn’t talk about the Leno segments in class (and no, we weren’t paying attention to the teacher), but focused mostly on what Letterman...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Life’s A Garden LP by Worthless. The beauty of psychedelic rock in its purest state is that the music is about art and expression first, and then everything else (be it community, statement-making, even simple performance presentation) comes second. That can mean a psychedelic rock album takes an unwieldy form (check out The Flaming Lips’ album Zaireeka – which requires that four CD players play a different disc simultaneously – for...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Modern Pressure LP by Daniel Romano. If we can all agree that the key to having an enduring career in music lies in an artist’s ability to always have listeners guessing excitedly at what they might have in store next from album to album, there’s no chance that interest in Daniel Romano’s music will wane anytime soon. Since the singer first appeared fronting a hardcore band in 2005, Romano has leapt...