Music
![Review: Various Artists – SMM: Opiate [Ghostly International Comp.]](/uploads/301/6930-various%20artists%20smm%20poiate-crop-396x288.jpg)
Review: Various Artists – SMM: Opiate [Ghostly International Comp.]
A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Noveller, Celer, Black Swan and Pjusk (plus many more) breathe life into their structured explorations of softened noise and white, foamy swells of feedback and elongated tones. Concentrated as this compilation is, there is a surprising amount of variety running through the curated contributors. … read more
Review: Xiu Xiu – Nina
This is obviously a work of love. This homage to the late, great soulstress Nina Simone is beautiful and stark. … read more
Review: VNV Nation – Transnational
Remaining true to their sound, VNV Nation have stuck with their trendy, almost mainstream, future pop style that created their popularity. … read more
Review: Synkro – Lost Here EP
This EP reflects the softer, more experimental side of dubstep that got its start in the UK. Dreamy vocalist Robert Manos graces half of the EP and makes the album easy to listen to. … read more
Review: Gary Numan – Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)
Numan’s latest album, Splinter (Songs For A Broken Mind), the 19th full-length released under his own name, has expanded his exploration of heavy industrial pop music, the sound he’s embraced since the early ’90s. … read more
Review: Aloa Input – Anysome
The styles the trio of Aloa Input (Cico Beck, Florian Kreier and Marcus Grassl) play with are multifaceted in their variations, but despite such a wide variety between the songs, the common thread throughout Anysome remains positively tropical. … read more
Review: Strike to Survive – Yesterday’s News
Drums and guitar high in the mix with jagged vocals buried a little beneath makes for a compelling listen, sort of similar to Drive Like Jehu or maybe even the first Bronx album (check the Refused-via-Stooges riffing on the title track). … read more
Review: The Smoking Flowers – 2 Guns
IIt’s more interesting than the crop of artists on the pop country charts, but that isn’t saying much. For sheer listening—if you enjoy the storytelling lyricizing of the country genre—you could do far worse. … read more
Review: Robert Pollard – Blazing Gentlemen
Robert Pollard’s musical universe (and it is a universe—he’s written thousands of songs) often sounds like some alternate through-the-looking-glass world, resembling classic rock, with riffs and lyrical tropes that seem somehow familiar, but from some other far-off constellation. … read more
Review: Moon Honey – Hand-Painted Dream Photographs
Baton Rouge, La. combo Moon Honey might lay to rest comparisons of that city with colorful New Orleans. Indie bands have dabbled with orchestral instruments before, but this product is psych rock with the theatricality of ’70s glam. … read more
Review: Melt-Banana – Fetch
Fetch will have you scrambling after their lightning-paced rhythms and the frenetic phrasings of vocalist Yasuko Onuki, and Ichirou Agata’s guitar explorations—which are all over the place in terms of the fretboard and effects—that range from video game noises to natural sounds. … read more
Review: George Glass – Welcome Home
There’s a smoothness about this straight-ahead pop stuff that some lo-fi aficionados might distrust, but put that down to their living in L.A. In that town full of phoniness, George Glass (who isn’t a person, BTW, just the band name) somehow seems genuine. … read more
