review

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Cassandra Wilson/Billy Holiday’s Record Store Day-issued split single “You Go To My Head” b/w “The Mood That I’m In.” I love the concept of “versus” releases. You know the ones, reader: the releases which pit two artists against each other under fairly limited conditions – be it to reinterpret the opposing artist’s songbook, or simply to compete and see who can make a better, more lasting impression on listeners in a limited...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the deluxe reissue LP portion of the Manic Street Preachers’ Holy Bible box set. The problem with the Brit-Pop explosion that happened in the 1990s (well, it was a problem for some people – others ate it up with a spoon) is that it was a really pretty, really clean and really sterile-looking solution to the void left in pop when grunge suddenly lost Kurt Cobain in 1994. Everything just seemed to...

Ground Control revisits the Enclave release of Sloan‘s One Chord To Another, and attempts to illustrate just how important the album was not just for Canadian rock, but how it qualifies as a Classic rock album in general. If you think about it critically, Sloan has been blessed with a succession of breakthrough moments over the course of their career. The first, of course, was Smeared; the band’s first full-length album marked the band’s emergence from the Maritime-Canadian underground rock...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Popular Problems LP by Leonard Cohen. Prior to hearing Popular Problems, I was of the well-founded assumption that Charles Dickens was the man best able to straddle the line between affection and alienation which often sounded or read like someone saying (to update the language a bit), “I love you, but you such.” Granted, many poets, authors and songwriters have framed their work in a similar manner to Dickens or used...

As contrary to the basic mindset of music journalism as it might seem (most critics like to see themselves as taste-makers with an ear for a hit, a finger on the public’s cultural pulse and a keen eye which recognizes emerging future trends), sometimes there’s just no way to explain how or why a band succeeds or fails to break through and become a cultural icon. It could be argued that it just boils down to dumb luck; sometimes a...

If you see enough “rock n’ roll” movies, eventually you begin to realize that there are always a few key points that are totally unbelievable: the best bands came from nothing (and a lot of them started by accident); their rise to greatness really begins at the moment the hardworking group sticks it to the man and starts doing things their own way, they reach a pinnacle of appeal and creative power at roughly the same time or immediately before...

Over the last few years, several artists have managed to successfully resuscitate the theatrics of old vaudeville and revival productions (see The Dresden Dolls and Amanda Palmer’s solo work – to name just the biggest of big names) and actually made the form interesting again. It’s been really cool to watch and, with that success at hand, it almost seemed inevitable that interest would shift to another fading style of music, and someone would try to start reviving it too....

Artist: Black Lips Album: Arabia Mountain Label: Vice Records Every two years when Black Lips re-surface, each new recording is slightly more polished than the last, each managing to sound as though it cost nothing make. Sometimes it costs a lot to sound cheap, and with in-demand producer Mark Ronson helming their new opus, the trashy garage sound synonymous with the Lips was in question. However the result is perfect with Ronson’s diverse musical taste fueling the integrity of their...

Artist: Black Lips Venue: The Phoenix – Toronto, Ontario, Canada Date: April 2011 No decade has produced more relentlessly touring bands than the 2000’s. Since the decline of record sales, bands have had to work harder to get noticed and get paid, and there is no better way than to play live shows all over the world all of the time. Every time The Black Lips return to Toronto they get bigger and more fantastic. Even though their show remains...

In art, as is the case in life, it has been proven time and again that the population of intelligent people in the world fall into one of two groups: those that consider themselves to be smart and those that simply are. So what’s the difference? Those that assume themselves to be intelligent usually come by the notion honestly – they might be scholarly, they might be good (if fairly humorless) conversationalists, they may be the ones that their friends...