By now, there are some constants that we can assert about The 1975. They like to dream big, and they love a wide concept with lots of room for experimentation. They come up with cool, often long album titles. Oh, and musically, well, they are all over the map. None of this is news, we…
You get the sense listening to the fifth album from Perfume Genius, aka Mike Hadreas, that at heart he’s a torch singer. Whatever the musical direction or production style an individual track takes – and he does just about everything here, from dirge-y electronica to buoyant faux-50’s dancefloor pop, maudlin grungy rock, and of course…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 29 May 2020. Equal parts passion, grit, and musical ecstasy, Sybarite5 is an intoxicating cocktail of post-genre musical goodness expressed through the virtuosity of Sami Merdinian and Sarah Whitney, violins; Angela Pickett, viola; Laura Metcalf, cello; and Louis Levitt,…
Drakulas are an art-rock quartet who just recently released their sophomore full-length album Terminal Amusements. The group is made up of several experienced members with frontman Mike Wiebe (Riverboat Gamblers, High Tension Wires), guitarist Zach Blair (Rise Against, Hagfish) and a cast of musicians including bassist Rob Marchant and drummer Ian Walling from Riverboat Gamblers…
Brendan Benson has the enviable position of being the other front man in the Raconteurs who shares the stage with Jack White, and the rhythm section of Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler. He shares half the vocals, plays guitar and somehow fades into the shadows every-time White steps to the microphone, or leans into one…
Since the band’s beginnings in 1988, founder and consistent member John Andrew Fredrick has now written and released eighteen The Black Watch albums; with Brilliant Failures being the latest. That’s a very long resume of indie rock for a band that still probably will be new to most. Well, maybe that will change if you…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 24 April 2020. Following acclaimed recordings of concertos by Dvořák and Shostakovich, the Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing returns to her roots with Grieg: The Violin Sonatas. She’s joined by Simon Trpčeski at the piano. Each of Edvard Grieg’s violin…
Migration Stories is the 10th solo album from M. Ward. So it’s unlikely anyone who’s encountered his music over the recent decades is expecting any surprises. In the brief label bio, Ward describes this collection of Migration Stories as “characters in a dream,” which is also a way of describing the hazy contours and soft…
It’s been long enough since the 2016 EP Future Present Past (which was little more than a solid single with a couple of extra B-sides) to have concluded that the return of The Strokes at the top of their game on a full-length release was not in the books. With long-standing stories in the press…
It’s too easy to look at a band (long established as an arena-filling commercial force) in its 30th year with cynicism when they release their 11th studio album as an attempt to hold on to past glories or as tired veterans taking advantage of fans with one more attempt to cash in. Here in a…
