Recent reviews

Our latest album reviews, featuring the records we've most enjoyed (or not) over the past few weeks.

Reviews by score
Browse our album reviews according to score: Highest (9.5/10 or more) or Lowest (2/10 or less)

Sleep Pod Two

Rehearse Your Future
Mindpower Records (2025)

You can always tell when a band contains seasoned musicians. They give off a different aura through their music and it sounds complete. It just meshes better. The songwriting is well done, the vocal melodies are catchy, and the transitions from verses, choruses, and bridges are complex but accessible. That is the case with this band. Let me introduce you to the band Sleep Pod Two. The name kind of threw me for a loop since it is a bit off the wall. However, after a simple search on what it means, I knew this band was one after my own heart. Apparently, it references the concept of shared experiences and human connections, particularly through difficult times. Now with that being said, that could also just be nonsense from the Google AI gods, but I’m rolling with it. This new band is comprised of members of Gameface, Jr. Juggernaunt, and For Closure. The band is dropping their debut EP titled Rehearse Your Future via Mindpower Records on August 29, 2025. The first single “All That We Have (Is Each Other)” is already available for your listening pleasure on all streaming platforms. The three song EP is a solid introduction for … Read more

The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die

Dreams of Being Dust
Epitaph (2025)

I’m instantly drawn to bands that have intriguing or long names. Without even listening to the first note of the … Read more

Testors

Prime Primitive: 1976–1977
Green Noise Records (2025)

Press release says this came out May 30th so I’m even more behind than usual… Blame summer! I did get … Read more

Eater

The Lost 1978 Sessions
Cleopatra (2025)

Hopefully everyone reading this already knows that Eater was one of the early British punk bands. Forming in North London … Read more

Spark of Life

Plagued by the Human Condition
New Age Records (2025)

Spark Of Life hails from LA and has been around since the early 2000s. Their debut album dropped in 2003, … Read more

The Dwarves

Sunshine, Lollipops & Rainbows
GREEDY (2025)

Sunshine, Lollipops & Rainbows is a live studio recording from 1989, released on picture disc earlier this year on limited … Read more

Browse our review archives

Review categories

200 Words Or Less

756 reviews

Book Review

45 reviews

Classic Album

25 reviews

Multiple Authors

300 reviews

Review

5067 reviews

Video/DVD Review

19 reviews

One from the archives

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Stadium Arcadium
Warner Bros. (2006)

Like some ever-present albatross around the neck of the rock scene, the Red Hot Chili Peppers continue to linger, 23 years after their LA inception; a different band. Battling through drug-related deaths, personal differences, drug abuse, inter-band squabbling, drug abuse, motorcycle accidents and drug abuse, it's something of a surprise that the band are still kicking it in 2006, now Kabbalah converts and off the drugs. Stadium Arcadium is equally omnipresent - the often disastrous rock double album. As The Clash learned with Sandinista! in 1980, there can sometimes be too much of a good thing. Luckily for the listening public, the Chili Peppers at least shelved a purported third discs' worth of songs that could have made this release an operatic-length extravaganza. That said, at two hours and 28 … Read more

More album reviews

Osmium

Osmium
Invada (2025)

Osmium brings together four artistic heavyweights, united not just by a shared experimental ethos, but by a love of bespoke and often self-made instruments. On their debut record, Hildur Guðnadóttir harnesses the unstable feedback of the halldorophone, a cello-like instrument designed by Halldór Úlfarsson. James Ginzburg (emptyset) contributes tamboura-like drones using a monocord of his own design. Sam Slater operates … Read more

Lutheran Heat

Hi Again
Pinata Records (2025)

Lutheran Heat have one of my favorite band names, a distinctly Minnesota tongue-in-cheek nod to local culture and mannerisms. But while I dig the band name, that's not really relevant to the rest of this review. Hi Again is their first record in 9 years, but it continues their garagey indie-punk tones. Expect garage rock guitar tones, slacker indie rock … Read more

Huma Utku

Dracones
Editions Mego (2025)

Huma Utku is an explorer. From her early days under the R.A.N (Roads at Night) moniker, she displayed a deep appreciation for experimental electronic music. From the outset, Utku wove together dark ambient motifs, industrial themes, and post-club abstraction into a minimalist yet holistic vision. Since adopting her own name, that same sonic excavation has continued, with a sharpened focus … Read more

Ava Mendoza, Gabby Fluke-Mogul & Carolina Pérez

Mama Killa
Burning Ambulance (2025)

Ava Mendoza appeared in the avant-rock scene in the '10s, and throughout the decade, she defined many works with her adventurous guitar playing and tonality. She made her mark through projects like Unnatural Ways, the trio with Tim Dahl and Sam Ospovat, and her split release with Sir Richard Bishop of Sun City Girls, Ivory Tower. Along her journeys, she … Read more

FVRMN

Suicides
Steadfast Records, Sweet Cheetah Records (2025)

Calling themselves "Fevermooon," FVRMN is led by J Holmes and Suicides is the second album in as many years. In a broad summary, I thought Back To The Whip was like a drawn out Leatherface or Jawbreaker record. Similar gruff vocals, personal lyrics, but paced with slower tempos and longer songs. Jumping to the present, Suicides has captured the tone … Read more

Lambrini Girls

Who Let The Dogs Out
City Slang (2025)

I ramble, at length, about basically everything. Word limits fear me. My friends dnf my texts. I think I may have single handedly crashed Twitter. Straight to the point, I am not. However, in the spirit of things, I’m going to dive right in. Who Let The Dogs Out is Lambrini Girls’ first full length album. 11 tracks, 29 minutes, … Read more

Sexfaces

Bad Vibes OST
Slovenly (2025)

Best thing about writing reviews is finding out about new stuff that I otherwise might not have heard. Also writing reviews for bands that aren’t friends of mine is pretty cool but when I hear a band I really like, like Sex Faces, it makes me want to be friends with them, I can't help it! I’m not even halfway … Read more

Unseemlier

I Have A Screw Loose, Somewhere
Sell The Heart Records (2025)

What does Unseemlier sound like? I've been mulling that question as I listen to I Have A Screw Loose, Somewhere for a while now. As I listen to more and more Sell The Heart releases, The band is from Boston, but seemingly influenced by late '80s DC. It's heavy, but more with hardcore-like vocals shouted over moving, building guitars and … Read more

Personality Cult

Dilated
Dirtnap (2025)

I had a hard time starting this review. I can’t help coming back to the fact that it sounds like Marked Men. It does, maybe intentionally so, as Dilated is the second of Personality Cult’s albums that is produced by Jeff Burke of Marked Men and Radioactivity. But I don’t necessarily like to say a band sounds like another band … Read more

Various Artists

Her Head's On Fire/Arms Like Roses - Split
Double Helix (2025)

Her Head’s On Fire (NY, NY) and Arms Like Roses (New Haven, CT) team up on this split 7” with two new tracks (one each band) of post-hardcore tunes that are both massive and melodic in their own distinct ways. "Universal" is the track from Her Head’s On Fire. Recorded by the band’s guitarist Jeff Dean, "Universal" came from the … Read more

Dead Bars

All Dead Bars Go To Heaven
Iodine (2025)

Dead Bars has a unique talent of taking the everyday, the experiences you see and live all the time, and shining a new light on them to make them personal and interesting. I've written about it before, yet it's my job to say this again and to make it interesting. It's what Dead Bars does, so it only seems fitting … Read more

Painkiller

The Great God Pan
Tzadik (2025)

Painkiller, the trio of John Zorn, Bill Laswell, and Mick Harris shows no signs of slowing down. The Great God Pan is their third full-length, since their reunion in 2024, and in many ways it is an unexpected offering. In keeping with their interests in the metaphysical realm, Painkiller find inspiration from the famed Arthur Machen horror novella. Here, the … Read more

Painkiller

The Equinox
Tzadik (2025)

Painkiller sees three absolute masters of extreme music join forces. John Zorn of Naked City and a billion other projects, Mick Harris who transcended from Napalm Death drummer to illbient guru with Scorn, and producer extraordinaire Bill Laswell. Their first two records, Guts of a Virgin and Buried Secrets are strange meditations traversing between free-jazz, grindcore and dub. Still hungry … Read more

Dauber

Falling Down
Dromedary Records, Recess (2025)

The lazy approach would be to call Dauber "ex-Screaming Females," but that barely scratches the surface. If I had to pick one band to namedrop a comparison to, it would be labelmates Night Court. They play a familiar style but with a lot of quirks that set it apart from the genre standard-bearers. It's driving and energetic -- more importantly, … Read more

Reviews by score
Browse our album reviews according to score: Highest (9.5/10 or more) or Lowest (2/10 or less)