Reviews

On its sophomore effort, Girls comes on all hot and bothered. Opening with the saccharine send-up “Honey Bunny” and working their way through to the fully-charged “Die,” Chris Owens and company are reticent, at first, to show their softer sides. However, the second half of the record tells another tale, gushing forth with sentimentality and […]

Disc-overy (Capitol/EMI)

“Let’s start a war for the kids”, the opening line of “Post-War Blues”, is a good example of Dan Mangan’s subversive wit. The link between economics and conflict is a secret topic for boardrooms and here a young singer’s sarcasm blurts it out. Oh Fortune,/em> lets ragged beginnings set up contemplative, nearly acoustic, numbers that […]

I can’t think of a more ridiculous band than the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Their bass player is a jazz phenom, their drummer is tight, their guitarist shreds, and their singer was in Point Break. Sounds good, right? Problem is these guys have made super annoying funk-rock for the past three decades. Californication was the […]

{image-1] This brother/brother/Brad Lahead combo is up to it’s usual tricks, packing ten minutes of tape full of compelling wordplay, chopped up pop hooks and unerring earnestness. Opener “Get In” finds vocalist Mark Grundy self-starting, working his band to a heartfelt frenzy and then, as the song reaches its apex, bolstering, “even if your heart […]

If hype’s habits held, J. Cole’s career should’ve been over before it even began. He was the first artist to sign to Jay-Z’s label, and when he declared Nas was a personal hero, hip-hop heads started dreaming of a modern Illmatic—rap’s most explosive debut. Cole World: The Sideline Story isn’t that. Instead, it’s “only” satisfying and supremely […]

In many ways, Burgertime—by the Teenburger trio of Ontario rapper Timbuktu and Halifax’s Ghettosocks and DJ Jorun Bombay—is the aural, moral opposite of Watch the Throne, the Kanye and Jay-Z collaboration. Watch the Throne is meticulous luxury rap over airlessly handpicked samples; Burgertime is three friends hanging out and delivering freewheeling wordplay about arriving late […]

Jay-Z may have called his collaboration with R. Kelly The Best of Both Worlds, but that album sucked. Watch the Throne, the new album by Kanye West and Jay-Z, is the superior crossover album. Feeling like more of an EP than a full length, Jay is back in his prime with wordplay not seen since […]

Sounds from nature
—songbirds, rain, lava—enrich Akron/Family’s music. In other cases, it has signalled a dearth of musical ideas. Here, it stokes imagination. An eruption blasts after the ringing guitars of “Fuji I (Global Dub),” which works as a climax to some cataclysm where avoiding lava flow is Job One. The narrative style and vigorous thrust […]

If ever there were a doubt that bookworms are ready to rock out, Library Voices live to dissolve it.“Reluctant Readers make Reluctant Lovers” brandishes Yeats and Hemingway as symbols of youthful virility superior to, say, a Camaro. The Regina septet have the Besnard Lakes’ Jace Lasek producing a more luminous rhythm on this sophomore album […]

Dallas Green has never sounded as warm as he does on his latest album Little Hell. Where Bring Me Your Love was cold and sparse, Little Hell’s 11 tracks are lush and the tone is much warmer here—but this is not to say that Dallas is any cheerier. Just listen to the lead single “Fragile […]

Oh Bla Duh was released back in May, but truly burst open once summer hit. Opening song “MRA” is loaded with promise, pulsing out of your car speakers and into your brain, straight through your legs and out as you cannonball into the water. “Kool” has twangy, leaping guitars that lick at your consciousness like the […]