Patrick Higgins, Tocsin (Telegraph Harp Records)
Just before the election, there was a pretty good meme making the rounds, in which God scolds Gabriel for filling the year 2020 with all the events that were supposed to happen during the entire decade instead of spacing them out. This New York Continue reading “Album Reviews 20/11/26”
The Old Rochelle, Pony Steps (Crumple Crumple Crumple Records)
This band is too messy and cool for me to dismiss as an average fedora combo, even if most of the varying ingredients are there. Thing is, this Lowell, Mass., band, led by Bucky Fereke, has hit on something that’s like Continue reading “Album Reviews 20/11/19”
Raf Vertessen Quartet, LOI (El Negocito Records)
The term “avant-garde” originally came to us from the military, a catchall describing a small troop of highly skilled soldiers who went ahead of the rest of the army to explore the terrain and warn of potential danger. That military association has mostly Continue reading “Album Reviews 20/11/12”
Touché Amoré, Lament (Epitaph Records)
I usually swipe left on promos from the Epitaph label anyway, so this Los Angeles emo quintet owes me one. I’m not just being a jerk here; it’s no longer necessary for me to pretend that I can deal with more of the shimmery, downer Continue reading “Album Reviews 20/11/05”
Laura Jane Grace, Stay Alive (Polyvinyl Records)
Laura Jane Grace has a lot her plate dealing with being the most wellknown punk-rocker in the LGBTQIA community. Thankfully, this time out, she didn’t even bother trying to bring in her band, Against Me!, through some sort of awkward Zoom collaboration in Continue reading “Album Reviews 20/10/22”
CrowJane, Mater Dolorosa (Kitten Robot Records)
For your Halloweening pleasure, we have this Los Angeles lady, last seen as the guitarist of Egrets On Ergot, a noise-rock band with the sound of early Nick Cave and the aesthetics of Dresden Dolls. The story goes that L.A. punk legend Paul Roessler Continue reading “Album Reviews 20/10/22”
Yellow Days, A Day in a Yellow Beat (RCA Records)
If you believe the hype bubbling up around this second album from Yellow Days, a.k.a. George van den Broek, he’s successfully bending ’70s radio-funk into a form of “upbeat existential millennial crisis music.” What that translates to in the real Continue reading “Album Reviews 20/10/15”
Tedy, Boys Don’t Cry (Sony Records)
This mononymed 28-year-old singer comes to us from Haiti by way of Montreal, where he’s most recently occupied himself with accumulating a gigantic flock of followers on TikTok and Instagram. He came out as gay on TikTok, which unleashed a tidal wave of attention Continue reading “Album Reviews 20/10/08”
U96 with Wolfgang Flür, Transhuman (Radikal Records)
The march of 1980s Nintendo-techno continues, this time with a worthy-enough pair-up between former Kraftwerk percussionist Flür and whatever’s left of U96, a project originally helmed by Alex Christensen, who’s no longer part of it. Just to be a jerk, I talked about Continue reading “Album Reviews 20/10/01”
Clan of Xymox, Spider on the Wall (Metropolis Records)
This Dutch goth-rock outfit, originally comprising three songwriters, is nowadays down to one prime mover, Ronny Moorings, who’s been at the helm since, well, forever now, the early 1990s. After some success on the 4AD and Polydor labels, including a whopping Continue reading “Album Reviews 20/09/24”
