Swans – To Be Kind (Young God)
To Be Kind is an album that refuses to die. It should, and it ought to, and humanity would be better off if it did, but alas the hulking mass of instruments assembled under Michael Gira’s beck and call stumble on and on, tripping over fibers of the time-space continuum as they do, and as […]
Liars – Mess (Warp)
TAKE MY PANTS OFF SMELL MY SOCKS USE MY SOCKS EAT MY FACE OFF Okie doke, boys. Picture the scene – it’s one of those dance clubs that you’d find when you look up “nightlife” in the dictionary. The ones in the movies that epitomize the corrupt and sleazy urbanites, with flashing neon crowded dance […]
SOLIDARITY TIME – Word Up for Joanna Gruesome
Today, kids, we are going to stand up and applaud. So Drowned in Sound interviewed Alanna McArdle lately. It’s an innocuous, friendly chat really, with ordinary journo-to-band questions about songwriting, live performances vs. recording, “the volatile state of guitar music” (which both interviewer and interviewee agreed was a load of BS), the huge corporate sham […]
SOTD #684 – Pairs
I’LL PAY THE STANDARD RATE So I posted that Cloud Nothings review. I’d been cracking away at it for a while, dissecting and inspecting and selecting, trying to figure out what’s missing. ‘Cos something’s missing. I know it ain’t the album of the year. If so, then rock and roll has clearly reached its expiration […]
Cloud Nothings – Here and Nowhere Else (Carpark / Mom and Pop)
I thought / I would / be more / than this Let no one convince you this is the finest album of the year. “Wasted Days” dropped jaws back in 2012 – and, don’t doubt it, I was flabbergasted the first time I heard this nine-minute master class of the modern-day guitar solo. It’s dramatic. […]
Sleaford Mods – Divide and Exit (Harbinger Sound)
BEEP BOO BEE BOP BEE BEE BOO BEE BOP We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast to bring you an important message from Nottingham: FUCK OFF WORLD. “Tied up in Nottz – with a zed, you cunt” Over in the UK, you see, a tidal wave of beaming press is building behind the boisterous duo Sleaford […]
Mac DeMarco – Salad Days (Captured Tracks)
Music on the American college radio waves lately tends to fall into three basic camps – garage rock revivalists (Perfect Pussy, Bleeding Rainbow, and I think that most unfortunately named Dry Heaves fall here, too); vague, endless beats (DJ so-and-so); and distracted abstract dreaminess (that’s you, Fear of Men). The good stuff slips between those […]
Song of the Day #683 – Ike
Sexuality is something I haven’t cracked yet. Kinda like hose, tall leather boots, and low-rise jeans – it’s a garment that never seemed to fit, both in a physical and metaphorical sense. Me, I wanted to show off my wit, not my body. Gimmie some baggy corduroys and olive knit duds any day. But then […]
Song of the Day #682 – Chorusgirl
Alone, alone, alone. Every day, when I’m walking down the street to downtown, or down the campus, I see them everywhere – the girls with the hose, the flimsy skirts, the shades and the vacant looks, laughing at their own idiocy, not feeling or seeing anything outside of their own little bubble (or cell phone) […]
Withered Hand – New Gods (Fortuna POP!/Slumberland)
Withered Hand excels where Beck flops simply by being himself - which, let's face it, is a difficult thing to be in a studio sometimes.
Phew. So lots and lots has happened between here and Xiu Xiu (th-thump, th-thump), and my private ledger of reviews to write has been swelling as subtly as my belly while I attended to other crucial real-life affairs. And meanwhile the parade of faces and sounds marches on and on – Perfect Pussy, in particular, […]
