February 2012
11 posts
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Review: Perfume Genius - Put Your Back N 2 It
Perfume Genius - Put Your Back N 2 It (2012, Matador)
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Mog
By Justin
“Hold my hand, I am afraid.”
These are the first words spoken on the second track of Perfume Genius’ second album, Put Your Back N 2 It. While it’s easy to use lyrics like this to connect the album to its artist’s haunting sound, it has almost become too easy to describe him as such. So...
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Review: Damien Jurado - Maraqopa
Damien Jurado - Maraqopa (2012, Secretly Canadian)
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Mog
By Alex Damien Jurado’s music is great at making you envision long road trips through dense forests and there’s no lack of this feeling on Maraqopa. It’s a pretty sonically ambitious album as it is not as catchy as 2010’s Saint Bartlett. Luckily, Maraqopa makes up for catchiness with a lush, dreamy sound and...
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Album Review: A Place To Bury Strangers - Onwards...
A Place To Bury Strangers - Onwards To The Wall EP (2012, Dead Oceans)
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Mog
-By Justin
A Place To Bury Strangers last released an album in 2009. It feels like a long time now, and much too long for a band of this quality to release a sequel to the excellent Exploding Head. It’s been almost as long since we’ve heard legitimate new material from the band either. Luckily,...
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Album Review: The Twilight Sad - No One Can Ever...
The Twilight Sad - No One Can Ever Know (2012, FatCat)
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Mog
On each consecutive album, The Twilight Sad have tried a different variation of their sound. No One Can Ever Know utilizes less guitar and feedback for a cleaner, more rhythm focused sound. Long gone is the is the bleak, almost post-rock sound of their debut. This change in sound has sapped them of a lot of their strengths as...
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Album Review: of Montreal - Paralytic Stalks
of Montreal - Paralytic Stalks (Polyvinyl, 2012)
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By Alex
On Paralytic Stalks of Montreal (Kevin Barnes) deliver paranoid confessionals with songs whose arrangements change at a manic pace. This isn’t always a bad thing. Paralytic Stalks is an album created by Barnes for Barnes, and one can tell by the length of most of the tracks on it. Barnes doesn’t want you to listen....
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Album Review: Sharon Van Etten - Tramp
Sharon Van Etten - Tramp (2012, Jagjaguwar)
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Mog
-By Justin
Sharon Van Etten’s exponential growth as an artist has been staggering. While she has always been a great songwriter, her musicianship has just recently begun to evolve at the same level. 2010’s Epic was an emotionally powerful album that showed a massive amount of potential in an all too short package. On...
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Album Review: Lana Del Rey - Born to Die
Lana Del Rey - Born to Die (2012, Interscope)
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By Alex
Lana Del Rey’s debut album, Born to Die has finally arrived after months of think pieces and backlash and the such. I’m not going to try and write a think piece here, too many people have done that already. After having listened to Born to Die so many times, I can’t say that I’ve particularly enjoyed it. Which honestly makes me a bit...
January 2012
55 posts
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Album Review: Porcelain Raft - Strange Weekend
Porcelain Raft - Strange Weekend (2012, Secretly Canadian)
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Mog
-by Justin
Sometimes it’s hard to describe an artist. With Mauro Remiddi’s Porcelain Raft, it becomes almost impossible. While Strange Weekend has a basis in electronic music, there is influences all over the map. Finally, I read Secretly Canadian’s press release on the album, where they state that:
...
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Bowerbirds // In The Yard
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Album Review: Craig Finn - Clear Heart Full Eyes
Craig Finn - Clear Heart Full Eyes (2012, Vagrant)
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-By Justin
Craig Finn, while flawed, is one of my favorite songwriters. His use of recurring themes and characters can be at times brilliant and at other times incredibly frustrating. He’s made some amazing albums with The Hold Steady and Lifter Puller. So now that he’s finally on his own for once, does his lyricism hold...
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Review: Cloud Nothings - Attack On Memory
Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory (2012, Carpark)
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By Alex
On Attack on Memory, Cloud Nothings has a whole new sound. Literally. What started out as Dylan Baldi’s solo project grew into a full on band, and the result is an amazing punk album. Whereas 2010’s S/T album hints at greatness, it’s sometimes too thoughtful for it’s own good, which could be because Baldi was on his own...
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The Men // Open Your Heart
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Review: Howler - America Give Up
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Mog
Howler - America Give Up (2012, Rough Trade)
By Justin
Chances are you’ve probably already heard America Give Up before. Not in the sense that you’ve heard this specific album, but more in a general sense. It’s another one of those rock albums with surf rock and garage rock influences. So we’re in the territory of about 85% of indie rock releases in the...
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Review: Guided By Voices - Let's Go Eat the...
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On Lets Go Eat the Factory, Guided By Voices are definitely back. By this I mean that they’ve reverted back to the fuzz of the 90s everyone loved them for in the first place. It’s interesting that in their first release since 2004’s Half Smiles of the Decomposed, a huge resurgence of a 90s sound has occurred in the indie music scene Robert Pollard & Co. influenced. It’s great to see...
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Oberhofer // HEART
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Field Music // A New Town
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Tanlines // Brothers
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Live Review: The Lemonheads @ Knitting Factory,...
Seeing your heroes in person is always a strange experience. Sometimes they’re everything you’ve idealized them to be, and sometimes they live up to the rumors or persona built around them. Usually though, they are somewhere in between. This is pretty much the experience I had Wednesday night with Evan Dando of The Lemonheads.
-Alex
Standing amidst a sold out crowd at the Knitting Factory in...
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Porcelain Raft // Unless You Speak From The Heart
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Rick Ross // Keys To The Crib