Fucked Up
Year of the Pig
Whats Your Rupture? (2007)
Fucked Up are on intimate terms with ambiguity. It's a rare virtue, since as a rule rock bands tend to seek the comfort of ham-fisted moralism or an apathy either hard-partying or self-pitying. But like Sylvia Plath circa Ariel or the earliest punk bands, Fucked Up stamp their works with an intimidating and sometimes uncomfortable symbolic resonance, leaving it to the listener to sort through the barbed signifiers. For some, it's a revelation; for others, it's condemned as pretension or irresponsibility, since it doesn'tas rock music often has since the late 1960sprovide an answering chorus for the listener's own tenuous, rickety belief systems: too much "Belsen Was a Gas," not enough "Nazi Punks Fuck Off." It's a bit like playing with a loaded gun, but that's also part of the fun: like Texas Hold 'Em, this kind of aesthetic praxis yields more rewards when played with high stakes. And like many of the best players, Fucked Up have never shied away from the high roller's table. On Year of the Pig, Fucked Up drag Hidden World's Cinerama hardcore out of the sunshine and down into the mud: punk rock's standard issue armament - what Chuck Eddy once called "three chords … Read more
Deathspell Omega
Fas- Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum
Norma Evangelium Diaboli (2007)
Wow, I haven't been keeping up with Deathspell Omega. I was lucky to end up with a promo copy of … Read more
Bad Religion
New Maps of Hell
Epitaph (2007)
Bad Religion may not need any introduction due to their notoriety in punk, hardcore, and various independent and even some … Read more
Mark Ronson
Version
Columbia (2007)
To steal from the classic Ben Stiller movie Zoolander, "Mark Ronson is so hot right now!" After producing the latest … Read more
Art in Manila
Set the Woods on Fire
Saddle Creek (2007)
With the indefinite hiatus of Azure Ray, the duo of Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink ventured into the lives of … Read more
