Published December 08, 2005. Bright Eyes I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning (Saddle Creek) The precocious, lisping boy wonder Conor Oberst?he can pretend “Bright Eyes” is a band of people, but please?makes good on his promise with this rousing country-rock record. (Companion electronica album Digital Ash in a Digital Urn is for patient fans only.) A […]
Tara Thorne
Posted inArts + Music
Bright Eyes
Bright EyesLua”/“Take it Easy (Love Nothing)(Saddle Creek/Outside) On January 25, 2005, Bright Eyes will release two full-length albums. I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning will showcase the familiar side of the band, the one that’s rooted in acoustic guitars and heartbreak. Digital Ash in a Digital Urn will reveal a new side to the project, one […]
Posted inArts + Music
C.R.A.Z.Y.
C.R.A.Z.Y.Directed by: Jean-Marc Vallée (TVA)The 10-time Genie-winning Quebec sensation C.R.A.Z.Y.—you could practically hear the uproar from here when it didn’t get an Oscar nomination for best foreign film—gets a DVD release on April 4. The sharp surrealist dramedy stars Marc-André Grondin as Zach, a sexually confused teen growing up the middle of five boys in […]
Posted inArts + Music
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
Glen Hansard and Marketa IrglovaOnce OST(Summit)This is how dope the songs from the terrific film Once are: they’re number one in soundtracks at iTunes, besting even Hannah Montana and High School Musical. Though some of the tracks are available rock-like on The Cost, the latest from Hansard’s band The Frames, and in delicate piano form […]
Posted inArts + Music
Brian Borcherdt
Brian BorcherdtThe Remains of(Dependent)Yarmouth native Borcherdt’s terrific 2002 Moth EP was but a glimpse of what his first proper solo full-length offers. The epic “1000x” is the best representation of the experimental Borcherdt’s ability to pull a song all over the place and still keep you locked in place for every second. Switching off between […]
Posted inArts + Music
Regina Spektor
Regina SpektorBegin to Hope(Sire)For bandwagon-fleeing Tori fans bitching that Myra Ellen has gotten soft with motherhood (wrong), here’s Russian-born, New York-bred Regina Spektor to satisfy your piano cravings and keep your hipster cred in the black. Following 2004’s stellar Soviet Kitsch, which helped put Spektor on the indie map near, but thankfully not of, the […]
Posted inArts + Music
Friday Night Lights: The First Season
Friday Night Lights: The First Season Directed by: Peter Berg and Jason KatimsUniversalThe winner of this year’s Emmy for casting was Friday Night Lights, the struggling NBC ensemble series that has moved from its Wednesday time slot so as to attract the kind of idiots that need it to be on Fridays. As the network […]
Posted inArts + Music
Gomez
GomezOut West (ATO)From the rise and fall of Britpop stars Oasis and Blur through the recent surge of nu-New Wave acts like Bloc Party and onto the wuss rock of Coldplay (and lesser Coldplays Keane and Snow Patrol), everybody forgot about Gomez. A terrific British five-piece with three singers and a name like a Mexican […]
Posted inArts + Music
Tori Amos
Published November 27, 2003. Tori Amos Tales of a Librarian (Atlantic) With no bona fide hits and only a few singles in her career, Tori Amos’s best-of collection inherently avoids the trap of existing to appease half-assed listeners who don’t own any albums. It’s a fan’s compilation, culling 20 songs from her first five records […]
Posted inArts + Music
Death Cab for Cutie
Published December 08, 2005. Death Cab for Cutie Plans (Atlantic) Death Cab releases its first album for an evil, corporate major label and nothing happens! Except a top 10 record! Nice fear-mongering, indie tools! Sonically nothing has changed, lyrically Ben Gibbard appears to be exploring his spirituality. Beautiful songs abound as always, especially the epic […]
Posted inArts + Music
Various
VariousMaybe This Christmas Tree (Nettwerk)Nettwerk’s winning compilation series—you could call it A Hipster Christmas—goes three for three with this collection of classic holiday tunes covered by bands normally holding onto an unhealthy amount of irony. The Polyphonic Spree’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” turns into jaunty Raveonettes effort “The Christmas Song” and then Death Cab’s […]
Posted inArts + Music
Grandaddy
GrandaddyJust Like the Fambly Cat (V2)“We’ve been doing this a long fucking time,” says Grandaddy drummer Aaron Burtch in the new Magnet, “and it’s still not happened for us the way it happened for other people we toured with: Coldplay, Bright Eyes, Snow Patrol. We’re too weird, too fuckin’ ugly. We’re not rich kids, and […]
