rock

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Prayer For Peace LP by North Mississippi Allstars. The terms and conditions for being regarded as an “artistic dynasty” are vague and often vary from band-to-band but, without question or argument, the Dickinson family fits the bill. First, there was Jim Dickinson; for forty-six years, Jim Dickinson was present in one capacity or another (either as an “artist” or as a “producer”) to help realize some of the greatest blues albums...

Toasting the XX Factor – The Aging Punk Looks At How More Women Are Taking Up The Axe To Save Rock N’ Roll. I recently went to a show featuring one of my favorite local bands. There were three bands on the bill in total; I walked into the bar in the middle of the first band’s set. I was disappointed to see that it consisted of all guys. Not that I have anything against male musicians, but right now...

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 Visuals LP by Mew. Without intending to come off as terribly cynical, it’s rare to be genuinely and truly surprised by by some new music recorded in this current age of formula and digital sameness now present in every quadrant of popular music. Often, it seems as though artists set the tone for what they plan to do on a new release within seconds of its beginning, and the success or...

Mastodon Emperor Of Sand (Reprise/Warner) After having spent the last few years stretching stylistically in a few different directions (The “White Walker” single found a home as the lead track for a season of HBO’s Game Of Thrones, 2014’s Once More ‘Round The Sun say the band get leaner and almost blurring the lines between metal and punk rock a bit), there’s something refreshing and exciting about the fact that Mastodon has made a glorious return to the sort of...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the vinyl reissue of Naveed by Our Lad Peace. Now with the benefit of hindsight, it is genuinely incredible when one considers how many classic bands just seemed to materialize from nowhere on the streets of Toronto in the first half of the 1990s. That might sound like an overstatement to those who came along later, but it’s true; bands like The Tragically Hip, the Headstones, Gorp, 13 Engines, The Morganfields, Thrush...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Rendered Obsolete LP by Kicker. Since punk rock got started and really began to develop some momentum many years ago, there has been no shortage of upstarts who have come along certain that those who came before them didn’t know jack and threw out the existing rule book which was governing the genre in order to start fresh. That fact may be inconvenient, but that doesn’t make it any less true;...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the High Hopes LP by Like A Motorcycle. There are few scenes that appear in motion pictures which are more worrisome than those where light explodes on the screen and, after the camera’s focus adjusts, viewers realize they’re staring up from the floor of the trunk of a car. The reason that image is disarming is because the trunk is a small space – it is incredibly confined and exists as a...

  A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the The Impossible Kid LP by Aesop Rock. I remember the moment that the world of Hip Hop was opened to me. Years ago, I was interviewing Dillinger Four at the Trocadero in Philadelphia, talking to their bass player about music. He said something along the lines of mainstream rap being in a deplorable state; to the effect that standards and quality control didn’t exist anymore – in his opinion. Lucky...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the La Llama Que Nunca Se Apaga 7” EP by Yesterday’s Heroes.
 I could open this review by writing something trite like, “When it’s done well, whether listeners comprehend the language that a song was written in or not is irrelevant; its meaning will come through in the passion with which it was performed,” but that would probably make readers scoff. It should – such statements are often heavy-handed and surprisingly artless...