Issues: Issue 306 - June 2014
Review: Woods – With Light and With Love
Brooklyn “do everything” folk band Woods return with a bright album full of quaint little pop songs with no edges and hooks so sugary they make Teenage Fanclub look like The Ramones. Woods are probably the least freaky of the “freak folk” acts, but definitely the most consistent (as long as Devendra Banhart keeps making shitty albums). … read more
Review: Wye Oak – Shriek
Like many of their musical contemporaries, Baltimore’s Wye Oak are embracing new modes of music-making and shying away from guitar-based rock structures to favor synthetic sounds and electronic textures. … read more
Review: Videoing – Treasure House EP
Opening with noise guitars and heavy beats, Videoing sucker-punch you with this five-song EP in a wave of electro-industrial sound and don’t let you up until the very end. … read more
Review: Vader – Tibi Et Igni
Polish death metal giants Vader enter the summer release chaos with Tibi Et Igni—meaning “For You and Fire” in Latin. Tibi Et Igni isn’t a bad album, though it struggles quite a bit. … read more
Review: Timber Timbre – Hot Dreams
Taylor Kirk of Timber Timbre has a devilish croon that can make Halloween seem like the most romantic holiday of the year. His band’s third album finds their inimitable style evolving once again, yet stumbling in the same ways creatively. … read more
Review: TOBACCO – Ultima II Massage
Bless this godforsaken heap of digital diarrhea. The most anticipated release of summer is here with TOBACCO’s latest and vilest album to date. I couldn’t be more ecstatic. … read more
Review: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Days...
Without much fanfare, The Pains’ classic lineup has gone (Peggy’s the DIY Editor at BuzzFeed!?) and been replaced by a rotating cast of indie pop vets. Sigh … is the indie pop revival that Kip Berman and friends kick-started in the late aughts finally having its bittersweet coda? … read more
Review: Symbol – Online Architecture
Online Architecture is one of the greatest synth-based records to grace my inbox this year. … read more
Review: Tempel – On The Steps Of The Temple
I’m not usually a fan of instrumental metal and most post-metal gives me rage-induced symptoms resembling a mix of dengue and dysentery. On The Steps Of The Temple has more heaviness to it than its brothers in the genre and on the first track, “Mountain,” I caught my head doing something resembling banging along to the death-metally riffs and double bass grooves on the drums. … read more
Review: Stagnant Pools – Geist
I could probably fill most of the shoegaze reviews I write with half-hearted comparisons to Slowdive and be done with ’em. That’s what I thought here, at first, with the opening song “You Whir,” but a different narrative unfolded upon subsequent listenings. … read more