Reviews

Grimes puts Canadian electronic music on the map with her minimalist-IDM inspired release. She sounds like the elfin love spawn of Super Mario and Princess Peach, whose steady diet of mushrooms allows her to make synth dreamscapes with haunting vocals. Compared to her future touring mates Skrillex and Diplo, Grimes sounds neither overtly abrasive nor […]

The album flows so smoothly that you wouldn’t imagine it’s the first record of the bluesy and soulful Alabama Shakes. Boys & Girls has a youthful liveliness with a vintage twist reminiscent of their R&B and classic rock influences like Otis Redding and Led Zeppelin. “You Ain’t Alone” showcases lead singer Brittany Howard’s deep, mature […]

Fans of the Halifax Mooseheads will already be familiar with Brite-VU’s material, as “Electric Avenue” and “One Foot” were featured in Eastlink’s promos during their recent playoff run. Both tracks appear on Restarted, the second full-length release from the Halifax based-band. Fans of bands such as Tonic, Matchbox 20 and 3 Doors Down will feel right at […]

While “radical” might seem like an exaggerated definition for these compositions it is not often you hear classical references juxtaposed alongside klezmer, film and jazz quotations with such natural flow and affinity. Playfully inventive yet at times quite challenging, the eleven tracks on Radical Cycle propel the listener (similar in the way that Pictures at […]

The second album of her young career, Heather Green’s Your Last War is a reverb- soaked pop-rocker that sounds like it was pulled from a nook between Radiohead’s The Bends and OK Computer. Dynamic layering gives the album a refined feel (unusual for a home recording) with handclaps and doubled vocals giving the record a […]

The bejeweled carny-devil gracing the cover of Ceti Alpha’s fourth release, Pista Loca, does no justice to the dark and pleasingly odd content of its music (except maybe on the dreamy “Galaxy Death Song,” where Nicholas Bevan-John sings “Hide under your sheets and I’ll be there soon/To hang 100 crucifixes upside down in your room”). […]

Not only does cassette tape live, it has artistic cachet. At least it does for French actress/writer Laurence Strelka and Haligonian globetrotter Denma Peisinger. Their collaboration was “recorded spontaneously” and they kept mostly first takes. What lifts it above the average art school sound project is Strelka’s Parisian accent, which makes everything sexy, even hell. […]

Yarmouth lost its ferry, but holds onto the will to rock. Named oddly for a theory of political options, the title tune navigates some tricky tempo changes beneath a chorus of “the body of Christ won’t save your soul.” It is catchy enough to dissuade the religious chant (or is it denial?) from slowing your […]

After a lengthy wait, Jason Pierce returns with Spirtualized’s seventh studio album. Inspired by the band’s 2009 front to back live performances of their landmark release, Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space, Sweet Light is a poppier album. Album opener “Hey Jane” is an eight-minute Kraut-rock groove inspired by early Rolling Stones, while […]

Crunchy and propulsive, The Space Age squeezes a lot of rock into the available space. Guitar man/singer Andy Patil backed Matt Mays in El Torpedo and Greg Fry is best known as the Heavy Blinkers’ drummer. There may be riffs you’ve heard before but never in this order, making the songs freshly familiar. There is […]

Inexplicably my iTunes went from “Afraid,” the last track on Jon Epworth’s Soul Mange, into GBH’s “Diplomatic Immunity.” For a second I was convinced that this might be the most eclectic Jon Epworth release ever. Alas, there’s no street punk to be found and while that may disappoint the spiky-haired fan contingent, there’s enough on […]

There is something incredibly direct and moving about Special Costello’s music. It has a grandiosity not dissimilar to Grizzly Bear’s louder moments. It can bowl you over with bravado and mange to charm the pants off of you at the very same time. Singer Jeremy Costello’s soaring vocals figure heavily into the duo’s cinematic certitude […]