33 total search results — Page 1 of 2
Pelican – Live in Chicago 06/11/03 DVD
Review — April 4, 2005
2005 sees the now Los Angeles-based label Hydrahead Records embark on yet another new endeavor, this time into the realms of limited edition performance DVDs by artists on their roster. The first is a 21 month-old concert by Pelican, performing several months before the release of their debut album. The …
Xiu Xiu – Life and Live
Review — April 15, 2005
Xiu Xiu are an anomaly in modern music. This at least, if nothing else, fans and critics of the group can agree on. Intermittently fragile, sad, tense, evocative, provocative and even humorous, the emotionof Xiu Xiu itself is overwhelming. Mix this with the often aggressive screeching broken electronic feel …
Sole – Live from Rome
Review — April 24, 2005
Decrying hip hop's more self-obsessed, corporate, "bitches n' bling" oriented side has become somewhat of an expected formality in the discussion of any Anticon release. Such is the "thinking man's rap" reputation the San Francisco based label has established for itself amongst the more discerning part of the record buying …
Transistor Transistor – Erase All Names and Likeness
Review — May 12, 2005
It's not very often these days one gets the opportunity to use the phrase "This brings the ROCK" without sounding like some kind of crotch grabbing throwback Darkness fan. If you miss (or totally missed out on) the days when Iggy Pop mocked Hells Angels while boasting about the size …
Four Tet – Everything Ecstatic
Review — June 2, 2005
There is nothing quite like having to follow up a great record. 2003's Rounds was such an album; engaging, beautiful and charismatic. And for an electronica album, or "IDM" if you must, that was really something. Ironically, it was even released in the same month and on the same very …
Hangedup – Clatter for Control
Review — June 10, 2005
Every so often an album seems to come out of nowhere and totally blindsides you. This is one of those albums. I initially put this on with little knowledge about it other than the fact it was released by Constellation Records (home of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, A Silver Mt …
Edie Sedgwick – Her Love is Real...
Review — August 25, 2005
Taking his moniker from the notorious Andy Warhol actress and one time girlfriend of Bob Dylan, Justin Moyer of El Guapo/ Supersystem has created for himself a whole new persona. Dragged up, transvestite sheik is Moyer's game, like a revamped Ziggy Stardust for the post- LCD Soundsystem generation. His aim? …
Xiu Xiu / Devendra Banhart – Split
Review — September 6, 2005
Take two of the indie music world's hottest acts, stick them together on a split release on one of the best record labels in America, make the vinyl any number of pretty colors and patterns and you have a recipe for success. Along with a ridiculously predictable, by numbers, 'I …
Sigur Rós – Takk
Review — September 12, 2005
It must be a truly horrible feeling to have the heart and soul you pour endlessly into your music summed up by thousands in one singular, horrendously monotone phrase: 'bath music.' No matter how many hours you bleed emotion into your chosen art form; to many that art will simply …
27 / Twin Zero – 27:00
Review — October 1, 2005
When quality is superseded by time constrains, one feels a certain degree of relief. If all goes terribly wrong and what you've written stinks, you can always fall back on the old 'It was a rush job' line. Here's my situation: I received the new split CD by 27 and …
Franz Ferdinand – You Could Have it So Much Better
Review — October 8, 2005
No longer is Franz Ferdinand the sole property of Glasgow's skinny tie wearing indie elite. They are now a phenomenon. Actually, scratch that. They are a worldwide fucking phenomenon. This results in two things. Firstly, the anticipation surrounding their sophomore album, You Could Have it So Much Better, is …
Gay for Johnny Depp – Blood: The Natural Lubricant
Review — October 16, 2005
In theory alone, I should love this album. Gay for Johnny Depp is a homosexual band. Great, I love homosexuals in bands. They sing about filthy gay sex. Great, I love filthy gay sex. They play cum rocking screamo hardcore. Great, I love screamo and hardcore. They love Johnny Depp. …
Lightning Bolt – Hypermagic Mountain
Review — October 24, 2005
Preparation for listening to the new Lightning Bolt record for the first time: ' Call up around a dozen of your closest buddy's and get them to haul ass to your place. ' Splash out your last forty bucks on as much low grade beer as your arms can carry. …
David Gray – Life in Slow Motion
Review — November 19, 2005
I'd like to begin this review by thanking the kind people at Dictionary.com and Google.com for their unwitting assistance in the writing of this here review. God bless you. boring adj. Uninteresting and tiresome; dull. boring adv. boringness n. Synonyms: boring, monotonous, tedious, irksome, tiresome, humdrum These adjectives refer to …
The Wives – Erect the Youth Problem
Review — November 29, 2005
Let's get the formalities and the predictabilities out the way right off the bat. Wives are a straight up rock band from Los Angeles whose main claim to fame is that their singer's car got hit by a reckless driving Backstreet Boy - the blonde one, if memory serves. The …
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Review — December 9, 2005
I can feel it happening. The hype is a train, rumbling in the distance. Though initially faint, it's growing progressively louder by the virtual second. Soon enough, it will be all encompassing when it finally arrives at the middle of nowhere railway station known as "Release Date." Metaphors, gotta love …
Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Review — January 23, 2006
In years to come, when the inevitable "I <3 2004" rockumenterary hits television with its small army of washed up never-were celebrities in tow, I can say "I lived through that". I was there putting copies of Franz Ferdinand on the shelves on release day. I danced unabashedly to that catchy Killers single. I shook my fist at many a U2 ipod commercial. More than anything though, I remember the dark cloud that descended over my little record shop …
The Gossip – Standing in the Way of Control
Review — February 1, 2006
If The Gossip were a lesbian they'd be the cool hip lesbian. You know, they're mid-way through their Philosophy degree, they shop at Salvation Army to approach a chunkier Karen O style, spend plenty of time in the local vegan friendly communally run coffee shop, and always seem to be …
Liars – Drum's Not Dead
Review — February 14, 2006
Tonight I watched The Blair Witch Project on television for the first time in quite a while. Before you read on, you should know that I may possibly spoil some of the film if you've never seen it before. But really, where the fuck were you in 1999? Anyway, the …
