A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Apostasy LP by Garbageface X Yung Gutted. Anyone who is already familiar with Karol “Garbageface” Orzechowski’s output knows the emcee has a pretty dark and potentially violent disposition (2016’s NØ FUTUR(E) 7” illustrated that really well), but he’s really stepped up his game on Apostasy with the help of NYC producer Yung Gutted. This time the movement is exponentially slower; in print, readers may assume the music is more methodical in...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the We Are Busy Bodies released, 2LP reissue of Make A Pest A Pet by Age Of Electric. First, it’s important to point out that this new reissue of Make A Pest A Pet – the third and final album by Age Of Electric before the band went on its first hiatus – marks the first occasion whereupon the album has been released on vinyl. Before now, MAPAP was available on CD,...
311 Transistor What was 311 supposed to do with the explosion that occurred when they released their selftitled album in the 90s? You know, the one with Down and All Mixed Up? Those songs were massive, the ALBUM was massive, and it helped firmly establish 311 as a band everyone was paying attention to – both where they came from and where they were headed. With all the momentum, it seems 311 was poised to go to...
311 Selftitled Have you considered the reputation 311 gets nowadays? I’ll refer you to a running gag on the Eric Andre show where they substitute the names 311 and 911 when quoting conspiracies. These were followed by surf-rock-type flailing and hippy dancing. At the end of last season they actually had 311 on to torture while they performed Down. It’s all in good fun, however, as Andre has gone on record saying that he thinks 311 is an underrated band....
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the white/blue split pressing of the Shit Don’t Stop LP by G. Perico. There’s something about G. Perico which just inspires listeners to want to back the emcee with every fibre of their being. It might have to do with the fact that he’s from just the right part of town to get a little musically nostalgic for (he’s from South Central L.A. – east of the Forum, west of the Watts...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the We All Want The Same Things LP by Craig Finn. Saying that some musicians are just natural-born rock phenomena might sound unbelievable on the face of the statement, but let’s be honest – some rock singers/frontmen were built for the job and could not easily be seen doing anything else. Where else, for example, could anyone imagine seeing Jeff Tweedy or Neil Young but at stage centre in front of a...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP Astralwerks reissue of Come With Us by The Chemical Brothers. Ever experienced a moment when, through no fault of its own, an album just seems to go underappreciated and/or just generally taken for granted, reader? It’s not an incredibly common occurrence, but it does happen; every so often, an album will suffer because it really just feels like “more of the same,” no matter how good it might be. For...
Teenage Bottlerocket Tales From Wyoming Teenage Bottlerocket are the purveyors of skate pop punk in our modern times. They’re not reinventing the wheel, of course, but it helps to understand this band if you consider that they’re just sticking to a formula and tampering with it. And what a formula it is: Teenage Bottlerocket are responsible for some of the catchiest melodies and sauciest riffs in the genre. Strangely, they haven’t written their masterpiece yet, and instead have kept on...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP reissue of Surrender by The Chemical Brothers. Then as now, the conventional wisdom is that Dig Your Own Hole has the biggest of The Chemical Brothers’ entries into the mainstream but, for this critic’s money, the greatest creative triumph of the group’s storied career is their third full-length, Surrender. With Surrender, the group had the mainstream’s attention and knew it, but rather than shying away or being evasive of their...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP reissue of Dig Your Own Hole by The Chemical Brothers. …And then, with the release of Dig Your Own Hole, The Chemical Brothers became a pop culture phenomenon. Now, it could be contended that the arrival and immediate public embrace of Dig Your Own Hole was the result of several different factors intersecting (after grunge, Brit-Pop overtook both the charts and popular imagination thanks to bands including Blur, Oasis and...