Reviews

Considering everything on Bailey Rae’s first two albums came from her own pen, the cooing Brit offers a departure here with five covers. The live version of “Que Sera Sera,” though heartily applauded, hardly rates nearly half the disc’s length. The rest is stellar in range and execution. Bob Marley’s “Is This Love” makes it […]

After two outings under his own name and an indie-supergroup side project (Monsters of Folk), Conor Oberst ducks back under the umbrella he’s best known for—Bright Eyes. Though most of the ramshackle alt-country has been obliterated, Oberst’s piercing lyrics and strained vocals remain, entrenched in big-picture songs about spirituality and philosophy, themes explored last on […]

An octet is bound to experience change over 40 years, and Roomful of Blues has seen a few new faces. A consistent sound is what holds its audience. A new singer like Phil Pemberton keeps things fresh, especially if nobody in the band writes songs. One trademark is the brisk exchange among guitar, trumpet and […]

They mean “content” as a noun, not an adjective and this can only be good. Despite a change on drums and bass, Gang of Four is back in all its fury. Skronk-punk guitarist Andy Gill still manages to sound like nobody else. Singer Jon King belts out the lyrics with both passion and clarity. The […]

Though I have long admired Jason Collett’s talents, this is the first album I can truly embrace as an exceptional piece of craft. While other LPs have contained some pretty stellar songs, they existed in isolation and the albums never fully realized as a whole. Pony Tricks, on the other hand, is a unique vision, a distinct […]

After listening to the first few tracks of this double CD collection, a squall of thoughts crossed my mind. The first being “Holeeeeey fuck, why have I not heard this before?” How did this escape my radar? And then after nary a few more–especially the deeply transporting “The New Improved Hypocrisy”
–I was hooked. It was […]

The sprawling pop outfit from Newfoundland returns with a third album shined to a high gloss by Scottish producer Tony Doogan (Wintersleep, Mogwai), who packs Tim Baker’s compositions with more sonic noise, blurring the defined stop-start quiet-louds of Hey Rosetta past. That means it takes a couple listens for the hooks to sink in–there’s nothing […]

Their third album finds the duo of Brandy Zdan and Dave Quanbury with more miles travelled for their dark characters. On “Mahogany Veneer,” the shared road trips enhance all experience. There’s nothing like boarded-up buildings in a place like Memphis to break the spell of its history. Home is Winterpeg…I mean, Winnipeg. On “Frozen Town,” […]

The double album has always been one of those “Oh really now, how dare you” rock ’n’ roll statements. Hard enough to fill one disc with consistently great material? Try two. But there are several defining moments in the double-album canon, and while III/IV isn’t quite those masterpieces, it is a textbook lesson in songwriting […]

Hooded Fang Album is a slice of hipster heaven from the Toronto-based seven-piece collective Hooded Fang, led by Daniel Lee, and its laundry list of guest players. While the band is very capable of hitting the studio and cranking out an album, which comes loaded with praise from some trusted critics, it just fails to […]

This debut from Winnipeg charges out of the gate with a good mix of settings for its trump card, the moody baritone of Michael Petka Falk. He can summon at will the ghost of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis. That’s obvious by the third song, “Someone Lit a Fire Under Kruschev,” which allows one to dance […]

When we spend our days surrounded by immediate sensations, sometimes you have to fight for the slower glories. The Olympic Symphonium don’t make immediate folk music: their jangly arpeggios, wistful harmonies and brooding strings make a quick impression, sure, but it’s an impression of mood more than anything, and it’s on repeated listens that The […]