Voodoo

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Tropical Breakdown LP by Pierre Omer’s Swing Revue. Ever since Swing Kids came out in 1993 featuring a cast of very talented dancers, hipsters have wanted to revive swing music and dancing and make it their own. The reasoning for that desire is really easy to understand; the music is wildly infectious even without the benefit of distortion pedals, and the gymnasts who dance to it in the movies make it...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Urban et Orbi LP by Urban Junior. It doesn’t seem like this should be true on paper but, in the fourteen cuts which comprise Urban et Orbi, Urban Junior shows those listeners who come upon the album the future of pop. That might seem like a bold statement, but it’s true; throughout this album, Urban Junior intermingles electro clash, punk, something which sounds like indie or garage rock and (somehow) underground...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Raw and Primitive Sound of The Christian Family LP by The Christian Family. With the success of bands like The White Stripes, The Black Keys, Death From Above and Japandroids in hand, making a guess about the probable sound of The Christian Family – another two-piece American band – seems like it should be simple: they’re going make liberal use of drums and guitar, factor the use of volume to create...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the It’s A Matter Of Time – The Complete PALP Session LP by Reverend Beat-Man & The Underground. In this era of digital production, rare is the album which feels and sounds dirty. Now, I don’t mean “dirty” in the sense that it was recorded poorly or the sound quality is poor, I mean the music feels dirty in that, after listening, a record leaves listeners feeling so unclean that listeners don’t...

Reverend Beat-Man and The Underground It’s A Matter Of Time (Voodoo Rhythm Records) It doesn’t happen every day but, every now and again, an album sometimes comes along which is just so fucking weird and good that it totally short circuits listeners’ synapses and leaves them wide open to the possibility of being both won over and perverted all at the same time. Such an idea may leave those unfamiliar with the potential value of such albums with the impression...

The Christian Family The Raw and Primitive Sound of… (Voodoo Rhythm Records) While it would be easy enough to spill plenty of ink on the fact that The Christian Family is pretty evidently a kindred spirit to such popular “dirty shirt rock n’ roll” bands as The White Stripes, Boss Hog, Royal Trux, The Black Keys and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, actually making such comparisons is entirely too convenient and doesn’t actually do anyone any favors. Stripped even more...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the You’re Class, I’m Trash LP by The Monsters. Arguably the greatest compliment one can pay to a punk record is not to call it “good” or “great” or anything like that (because such terms can be – and have been – dismissed as a matter of opinion or as a matter of perception), but to simply exclaim, “You’ve gotta hear this” to as many potentially receptive ears as possible. Word tends...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Voodoo Rhythm Records Label Compilation Vol. 5 LP. I confess that label compilations have never been my favorite thing. Not that I’m definitively against the form (I have heard some good comps over the years, and labels like Sub Pop, Killrockstars, Epitaph, Fat Wreck Chords and Pirates Press have a longstanding history of having produced some pretty great ones), it’s just that many of the compilations I’ve heard (and this includes...