Music
Review: The Growlers – Hung at Heart
The Growlers = Not in the Face + Allah-Las + Beach Boys … read more
Review: Gloria Morti – Lateral Constraint
Gloria Morti = Negator + The Forsaken … read more
Review: Gliss Langsom – Dans
Gliss = Blonde Redhead + Beach House + Depeche Mode … read more
Review: Dad Punchers – Self-Titled
Dad Punchers = Get Up Kids + Joyce Manor + Cub … read more
National Music Reviews 2/13
New and recent releases from Chelsea Wolfe, The Evens, Foxygen, Frontier Ruckus, Shai Hulud, Wayne Hancock and many more reviewed.
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National Music Reviews – January 2013
Releases from Amenra, Big Dipper, How To Destroy Angels, Old Man Markley, Pere Ubu, Teh Vaccines, Vomitor and more are reviewed. … read more
National Music Reviews – December 2012
Reviews of new music from Dragonette, E.D. Sedgwick, Hostage Calm, Incantation, Indian Handcrafts, Night Moves, Sleep Maps, and many more are featured … read more
Top 5: White Lung
Where much new punk music is conflated with hardcore, stoner metal, indie, folk or pop-punk, White Lung have managed to pick up where mid-aughts bands left off, to push a straight-up punk sound into a different realm without interlacing their tunes with conventions from other genres on their sophomore release, Sorry. … read more
Top 5: Purity Ring
Shrines is a beautiful contradiction of icy, synthetic start-and-stops created by Corin Roddick, and the sugar-dipped ghost vocals of Megan James dissecting through the cold mass of chimes with awkward, gut-wrenching lyrics. Though the choppy hip hop beats, dubstep wobbles and breathy witch house elements initially draw the listener in with exterior superficiality, a few more close listens reveal a poetic push-and-pull between the instrumentals and songwriting that beg for deconstruction. … read more
Top 5: Japandroids
Celebration Rock is the musical equivalent of getting shitfaced with your friends and talking about past successes or ex-girlfriends, ending the night with drunken optimism about the future. Somewhere between post-rock and pop-punk, they are never trying too hard to be cool—it all seems genuine. … read more
Top 5: Evoken
“I will diminish those centuries and persecute those with quiet desperation,” bleeds a grumbled death roar from the title track off Evoken’s fifth album. Not only do the gloomy lyrics set the tone of the album with the starting song, but the music does as well. Atra Mors’ biggest success as an album is its gutsy equality of atmospheric, obliterating doom and brain-stem-carving memorability. … read more
Top 5: Crystal Castles
Ethan Kath begins with a heart-heavy siren—your chest caves as your ears ache to understand what is coming. You feel yourself stepping onto a spaceship, and, before you know it, you are counting down, beat by beat, three, two, one … blastoff. Vocalist Alice Glass’s signature, scathing voice yells, “I am the plague,” and you succumb to the darkness that they breathe. … read more
