Year: 2014
Review: Snowmine – Dialects
Sounding a bit like an unsigned 4AD band complete with moody, ethereal backgrounds, lush orchestrations and sometimes-coherent-sometimes-not vocals—the Brooklyn quintet certainly distances itself from its contemporaries by creating everything by hand. … read more
Review: Snowflake – We All Grow Toward The Sea
I guess working with douchebag musicians for a living must be rough since all of the songs have a somber tone. The keyboard and guitar work is beautiful and atmospheric while the percussion is almost industrial. … read more
Review: Snowbird – moon
Snowbird = Seabear + Daughter … read more
Review: Snacs – Swim Tape
Snac’s Swim Tape received heaps of praise in 2013 for sending a chilled-out, sample-based beat pastiche of chillwave-meets-nu soul-meets-droning ragas, deep underwater. Josh Abramovici intends you to listen in one 30-minute sitting, a transporting move through stream-of-conscious beat-making. … read more
Review: Skinny Puppy – The Greater Wrong Of The Right...
These dominant industrial figures have always prided themselves on not being “sellouts”—I assure this great achievement was something they thoroughly despised. As with much of their work, the spine is a political point of view, yet there is a profound shift in their creativity and musical expression. … read more
Review: Sleepers Work – No Turn Before the Shoreline
William Flynn’s bold, new ambient EP contains an array of eclectic trinkets that create an incredible collective of sounds. This album is what I think might be good for ambient beginners, thanks to Flynn’s steadily incorporated rhythm. … read more
Review: Slough Feg – Digital Resistance
Mike Scalzi continues to tread the thin line between heavy metal and rock n’ roll with his acrobatic guitar work and unconventional songwriting. The whole production sounds warm and organic, contrasting well with the album’s lyrical themes of technological isolation … read more
Review: Solander – Monochromatic Memories
If Tumblr had a soundtrack, this would be it. Blending semi-wavering vocals à la Conor Oberst, Solander mixes twangy banjos, majestic cellos and outdoorsy lyrics to accompany all those pictures of skinny, naked girls smoking cigarettes, GIFs from Skins and fog-covered pine trees. … read more
Review: Spirits and the Melchizedek Children – So Happy, It’s...
So Happy is comprised of deep washes of neo-psychedelic, reverbed-out guitars, spectral folk of a doomed American West and the deep ebb and flow of droning guitars sacred enough to divine gold. … read more
Review: Sleepy Sun – Maui Tears
Maui Tears is the band’s finest work yet. It’s a perfection of everything good from Fever and Spine Hits. The record opens with “The Lane”—an angelic little ditty featuring guitars that soar through the clouds and rip through the ether in search of a realm of permanent shapes. … read more
Review: Southern Culture on the Skids – Dig This
For years, Southern Culture on the Skids have been one of those Americana bands that are such a well-built hotrod of a band that, when it comes to any of the genres that they tackle, they can naturally shift from country to surf to R&B and every bit sounds as authentic as it is original. … read more
Review: Spiritual Rez – Apocalypse Whenever
This fourth album, and first album not self-produced, is a huge step for this seven-piece Boston reggae/ska/progressive rock band. … read more
