Published November 29, 2007. Museum Pieces City of Brotherly Love indie Tyler Messick can basically spin gold no matter what he attempts—no truer than when he turns Museum Pieces into an indie-rock outfit as he did this year. Although the band’s focus is more on the guitar-drum rhythmic interplay (especially when the band is stripped […]
Dave Hayden
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Lou Barlow
Lou BarlowEMOH (Merge)With the release of his first solo disc, Lou Barlow has made himself relevant again. Through his work with Sebadoh and the Folk Implosion, he practically drafted the blueprint for heart-wrenching bedroom recordings and became the spiritual father of artists like Conor Oberst. But for a few years, he got off track. EMOH […]
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Elvis Costello and the Impostors
Elvis Costello and the ImpostorsThe Delivery Man(Lost Highway)While Elvis Costello is still dabbling in “serious” music- making—writing for Diana Krall and the symphony—it’s good to see he hasn’t forgotten how to kick a lick around. Here Costello is in top form, firing off rollicking blues and country-tinged jams. “Button My Lip” and “Bedlam” are exactly […]
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Various
Various Poor Boy: Songs of Nick Drake (Songlines)Nick Drake’s music, riding a peak of popularity 25 years after his death, is long overdue for a tribute album. But this recording loses focus by its over- intellectualization of the music, losing sight of the true essence of his songs. Even without being verbatim cover versions, Veda […]
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The Creatures
Published November 06, 2003. The Creatures Hai! (Instinct) In the fall of 2002, Budgie, drummer for Siouxie and the Banshees, met up with Taiko drum phenom Leonard Eto to record some spontaneous drum improvs. The session—appropriately referred to as “a full blown drum frenzy” in the liner notes—later formed the basis of this new Creatures […]
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The Thermals
The ThermalsThe Body The Blood The Machine(Sub Pop)For its third album, Portland, Oregon’s Thermals released a sharply executed, prophetic tale of what America would look like as an ultra-right wing religious state governed by a president that assumes his power comes directly from God as wages war for oil and the masses follow as blindly […]
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Scout Niblett
Published August 25, 2005. Scout Niblett Kidnapped By Napped by Neptune (Too Pure) Comparisons to Cat Power and PJ Harvey dotted the critical landscape of her first two albums, which only helped Nottingham, England’s Scout Niblett become somewhat of a darling in the eyes of critics and indie fans. With her quiet, pixie-like voice that […]
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Clay Aiken
Clay AikenMerry Christmas with Love(RCA)Quick, someone throw a turtle-neck sweater on this man and get him a pipe and roaring fire to sit by. (While you’re at it, call Bing Crosby to say he can finally rest in peace.) Clay Aiken’s old-fashioned boy-at- home persona finds its niche in this album that sounds like what […]
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Seachange
SeachangeLay of the Land (Matador)Seachange’s debut for the influential Matador Records finds the Nottingham, UK sextet mixing wall-of-sound guitars, searing violin and an enigmatic lyric-spitting vocalist, Dan Eastop, in an erratic display of songwriting. If Lay of the Land maintained the level of intensity exhibited in the tracks “Superfuck,” “Forty Nights” and “Do It Again,” […]
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Jane’s Addiction
Published August 07, 2003. Jane’s Addiction Strays (Capitol) Jane’s Addiction’s return to the American music stage after 13 years will come as a mixed blessing to fans. There is nothing as essential as “Been Caught Stealing” or “Mountain Song,” songs created out of desperation that became iconic. But Strays reeks of the decadence Farrell and […]
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The Stooges
The StoogesThe Weirdness(Virgin)The Stooges, man! Fucking legends! Right? If so, The Weirdness doesn’t really show it. The (New) Stooges don’t offer anything new or exciting to the band’s old formula of out-from-under-a-rock post-punk style it helped define decades ago. And it begs the question: “Why bother?” Back in the day this shit was raw and […]
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Castle Project
Castle ProjectDiaries of a Broken Heart(White Whale)Ex-Spitfire member Ryan Ostiguy wrote this disc after the dissolution of his marriage. And while the title might lead you to believe that the songwriting will be trite — just another series of over-done love-gone-wrong songs — it’s everything but. Diaries, produced by Howard Redekopp (New Pornographers, 54-40), so […]
