Tori AmosA Piano: The Collection(Rhino)Three of Tori Amos’s last four releases have been repackages: 2003’s Tales of a Librarian, a collection of her best-known songs (“hits” is inaccurate); last year’s Bootlegs, a web-only 12-disc series of six live shows from the Original Sinsuality tour; and the mother lode, this five-disc, 80-song retrospective. But none of […]
Tara Thorne
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Fall Out Boy
Fall Out BoyInfinity on HighUniversal“Welcome, it’s here,” intros Jay-Z off the top of the quartet’s how-you-like-us-now follow-up to the breakthrough From Under the Cork Tree. Pete Wentz’s antics detract from his band’s massive hooks, great lines like “long live the car-crash hearts” and a generational rally call in “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s An Arms […]
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Coldplay
ColdplayX & Y(Parlophone)When wags call Coldplay the next U2, they mean the British quartet is the Next Great Anthem Band. Coldplay finds strength in the crescendo, the ethereal chorus, the dramatic pause and the spare outro: songs to sing along to with 20,000 of your closest friends. Think of “Yellow,” their biggest single, and its […]
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David Usher
Published October 02, 2003. David Usher Hallucinations (EMI) Can we just forget Moist ever happened? David Usher is much more palatable as a solo artist than as frontman for the only-in-Canada megagroup that’s not quite as bad as the Tea Party but worse than Our Lady Peace. Hallucinations completes a trio of trippy, acoustic solo […]
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Sufjan Stevens
Published December 08, 2005. Sufjan Stevens Illinoise (Asthmatic Kitty) Illinoise is not an album to be listened to in pieces. It’s an historical document, revealing a state that’s more than the Sears Tower, wind and the Cubs. Almost ridiculously lush?start counting instruments now?and gorgeously performed, the young Stevens could be the next great hope, or […]
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Tori Amos
Tori AmosThe Beekeeper(Epic)Old fans sniffing that Tori Amos has lost it are like indie dopes who can’t grasp that bands want to sell records: If you don’t get it now, you never did. Buzzing in three years after Scarlet’s Walk, her epic interpretation of post-9/11 America, The Beekeeper blends Under the Pink’s balladry with Boys […]
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Death Cab for Cutie, Directions
Death Cab for Cutie, Directions(Atlantic/Barsuk)Back in the day of MTV’s infancy, artists often made videos for every single song on their albums. It was a waste—only the videos for singles ever saw the light of day. 50 Cent did it recently with The Massacre, which makes a bit more sense in this era of DVD-repackaging […]
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Rilo Kiley
Rilo KileyUnder the Blacklight(Warner)After two years off for Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett to pursue their solo projects, Rilo Kiley returns with this catchy-ass disappointment. Sex is a key theme, but lines like “I was smokin’ him in bed” do not provide enough edge to hide the irony-dipped Casio lines and easy-listening arrangements. Opener “Silver […]
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Various
VariousThe OC Mix 5 WarnerThe OC is a better record store than television show, breaking bands as viewership dies of boredom. The third Mix was a nine-song cash grab and the fourth was mediocre, but number five resurrects the series’ worth. LCD Soundsystem boasts through the clapalong “Daft Punk is Playing at My House,” Rogue […]
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Avril Lavigne
Avril LavigneUnder My Skin (Arista)Raine Maida and Chantal Kreviazuk, who produced and co-wrote half a dozen tracks, respectively, dominate Avril Lavigne’s follow-up to Let Go (you’ll know which songs are theirs by the ah-ah-ah vocal wanks prevalent on their own records), but guitarist Evan Taubenfeld is Lavigne’s guiding force. He wrote the music for the […]
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Escarpment Blues
Escarpment Blues Directed by: Andy Keen (Universal)Too short to resonate as a music doc and too long to be an effective ecology lesson, Andy Keen’s Escarpment Blues—following Sarah Harmer and her band/hiking team on a literal and musical tour of Ontario’s Niagara Escarpment region in the summer of 2005—feels instead like a particularly hip episode […]
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Jenn Grant
Jenn GrantOrchestra for the MoonParis 1919This spring, the best voice in Halifax emerged from CBC’s Studio H in a hail of glitter and jubilation for her benchmark LP debut. The tragedy of Grant’s decade of extreme stage fright is obliterated by the experience gathered in that time, the confidence it gives her now and the […]