Black Books write big songs confined to small places. There is an epic and anthemic quality to Black Book’s cloistered little pop songs: a driving, pulsing urge to express something too huge for words written in broad brush strokes of soaring choruses and the diffused light of atmospheric passages oozing out of guitars and synths that blend ambient colorings into vital, crunchy power chords. … read more
Review: Black Hearted Brother – Stars Are Our Home
After fronting the legendary shoegaze band Slowdive, and then moving on to the delicate folk on Mojave 3 and his own solo output, Neil Halstead has returned to the free-floating psychedelia of heavily affected guitars and synthesizers with his new band, Black Hearted Brother. … read more
Review: BL’AST! – BLOOD!
Dave Grohl. Is there anything he can’t do? He’s a well-known singer/songwriter, has “former Nirvana drummer” on his résumé, and now he’s resurrected the ’80s hardcore band BL’AST! by mixing a collection of unearthed tracks in their newly released album. … read more
Review: Blackout – We Are Here
While this may sound like a formula for your garden-variety sludge, Blackout spare no opportunity to reimagine the genre. Oh yeah, and don’t forget your bong. … read more
Review: Big Star – Playlist: The Very Best of Big Star
In the latest catalog of the preeminent power pop group Big Star, Playlist outlines all the incarnations of this influential band. … read more
Review: Bill Callahan – Dream River
These songs are the kind of dreamlike reveries that can lull you into a drifting state that can carry you into dangerous territory, if that danger is sometimes just impending, around the corner. … read more
Review: Bipolaroid – Twin Language
I haven’t heard an album with this same perfection of vintage sound in a long time. Songs such as “Tonight We Paint the Town Our Favorite Colour” and “Efflorescent Adolescent” (plus basically every other song on the album) sound like they could be missing tracks from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. … read more
Review: Blank Realm – Grassed Inn
On one end, there is the dance of the psychedelic and electronica with a splash of synth that makes up most of the tracks like “Violet Delivery” and “Reach You on the Phone.” On the other end, there is the steady, catchy beat of “Falling Down the Stairs” that evokes a nostalgia for Echo and the Bunnymen. … read more
Review: Birds of Passage – This Kindly Slumber
On her latest album for Denovali, Merz steps in front of the microphone and behind the thousand blinking lights of pedals and sequencers to create an album full of elegiac drones and deconstructed neofolk tunes that form out of the ether like a heavy mist across a bog or clouds quietly forming on the horizon. … read more
Review: Big Sexy Noise – Collision Course & Trust the Witch
Ultra fuzzed-out guitars, combined with weird-ass background effects fill up most, if not all of the space behind the lyrics. Lydia Lunch, an impressive vocalist, usually sounds incredibly creepy and will probably haunt my dreams for the remainder of my life. … read more
Review: Black Knights – Medieval Chamber
Prepare for sounds of electronica with unrelated samples and effects, which are backed with an orchestra and an occasional chorus. Rugged Monk and Crisis spit harmoniously with the beats, hitting you with those West Coast, hard-hitting flows. … read more
Review: BlakOPz – As Nations Decay
“Debris Machine” has to be my favorite track, as it has a perfect layout of how backing industrial and synth tracks can be blended. The vocals on this release confirm that a revisit to the old industrial style is taking place. … read more
