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Reviews by Sarah

219 total search results — Page 3 of 11

Cloudkicker – Let Yourself Be Huge

Review — November 28, 2011

Frankly, I'm just as surprised as you are. Ben Sharp, known to many only as Cloudkicker, had warned earlier this year that he was not going to be releasing new material for a while. I guess Sharp's conception of a long time is drastically different from the norm, because the …

Vildhjarta – måsstaden

Review — November 28, 2011

Let's face it: djent is beginning to sound really, really homogeneous. Though we've known for a while that every single band in the genre is cutting their music the same mould as Meshuggah, I'm beginning to suspect they're using the same knife and cutting board, too. A lot of …

Uneven Structure – Februus

Review — December 5, 2011

It takes a lot of chutzpah to have a double-disc debut. That doesn't seem to faze French/Swedish band Uneven Structure, as proven by their debut release on Basick records, the 90-minute opus Februus.The first disc is one 55 minute unbroken suite. It takes a lot of cues from …

Boris – New Album

Review — December 5, 2011

New Album is a bit of a misnomer, at least on this side of the pond. It was actually released all the way back in March in Japan, two months before Heavy Rocks and Attention Please were released globally. The rest of the world had to wait until November to …

Scythia – ...Of Exile

Review — December 12, 2011

I admit, I sometimes forget folk metal actually exists. Sure, I toss around the term frequently when discussing Opeth, but rarely do I ever bring forth what the term actually means. I often forget the music of great bands such as Wuthering Heights or Skyclad. That's one reason …

Björk – Biophilia

Review — December 12, 2011

I have immense respect for Björk. She combines all of the showmanship and bombast of pop artists like Lady Gaga with the complex and intricate composition skills of electronic artists like Aphex Twin. She's one of the few pop artists that continue to push their own creativity with every …

Between the Buried and Me – The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues

Review — December 15, 2011

It's hard to describe the nature of Between the Buried and Me's new project, The Parallax. It is kind of like a double album, except not quite. It's divided into two releases, an EP and a future full-length album, that together tell a story about...well, honestly, I'm not quite …

Various Artists – Junius-Rosetta

Review — December 15, 2011

Junius and Rosetta are two odd bands to select for a split. It's hard to imagine the sonic distortion of the band behind The Galilean Satellites matching up with a band as mellow (in comparison, anyway) as Junius.Their contribution, “A Dark Day With Night,” sounds eerily ethereal; the sweet …

Brainkiller – The Infiltration

Review — December 15, 2011

I was actually quite excited when I heard the trio Brainkiller's new album, The Inflitration, described as a mix between jazz, prog, and psychedelic music. I listen to a fair amount of all of those genres, so I thought it shouldn't be a half-bad listen at all. I …

Cloudkicker – Loop

Review — December 15, 2011

Following the release of Beacons in 2010, musician Ben Sharp began releasing a series of short, acoustic instrumental loops on his blog. At the time, they were nothing more than a set of enjoyable curios. They sounded like some of the earlier post-rock material he had released as B. M. …

Giant Squid – Cenotes

Review — December 19, 2011

Well, that was a short album. At only thirty-five minutes long, doom/sludge metal group Giant Squid have almost halved the runtime of their previous album, The Ichthyologist, for the release of their third studio album, Cenotes.But what does brevity matter, when the music is top quality? This …

Steven Wilson – Grace For Drowning

Review — December 19, 2011

It's pretty easy to get inside Steven Wilson's head. It's abundantly clear from his works with Porcupine Tree that the man has a fetish for 1970s era progressive rock à la Pink Floyd, Yes and King Crimson. Sure, Porcupine Tree has also picked up influences from modern extreme …

Efrim Menuck – Plays "High Gospel"

Review — December 26, 2011

Thank goodness I have musical OCD. I likely would not have even known this album existed if not for my compulsion to check and re-check the post-rock section of my local record store with worrisome frequency. Needless to say, after finding out that Godspeed You! Black Emperor and A Silver …

Charts And Maps – Dead Horse

Review — December 26, 2011

There is no easy way to define Charts and Maps' sound. My gut reaction is to throw the whole thing under 'math rock,' but that term alone ignores all of the other aspects of their sound. Their proper debut album, Dead Horse, features a diverse array of influences from …

Pink Floyd – The Dark Side Of The Moon (Experience Edition)

Review — January 4, 2012

'Oh great,' you're probably thinking, 'another critic on the Internet with her head up her own ass talking about this fucking Pink Floyd album again. How droll.' Let me assuage your concerns: I'm not here to review or otherwise convince you either way on The Dark Side of the Moon …

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here (Experience Edition)

Review — January 2, 2012

I'm really quite thankful that the Why Pink Floyd...? remaster campaign has made it to Wish You Were Here so soon. It has aged incredibly well, and is every bit as perfect of an album today as it was when it was first released. It even holds up favourably in …

City of Ships – Minor World

Review — January 2, 2012

Every once in a while, an album comes along that makes you rethink an entire genre. It's an album that makes you step back and rethink your musical expectations, as well as casting your future thoughts in an entirely new light. City of Ships' newest album, Minor World, is …

Traveler – Going Home

Review — January 2, 2012

All right, Traveler don't waste time, so neither will I. The Cleveland punk/melodic hardcore group write short, enjoyable pieces that are stripped down to their absolute bare essentials. The four tracks of their debut EP Going Home take only around seven minutes of your time to listen to. The songs …

Kovlo – Hey Mom, Where's Timbuktu?

Review — January 2, 2012

Swiss post-rockers Kovlo have quietly released two albums over their career, beginning with their debut A new position for the second degree burn in 2005 and followed up with I’m so happy on this boat in 2007. For a band that has (rather unfortunately) seen as little notice on the …

We're Doomed – Like A Machine

Review — January 2, 2012

Despite what they may want you to think, We're Doomed don't sound like the end of the world. They sound more like Muse took some Adderall and borrowed whatever illegal-drug-based songwriting method I highly suspect that Battles uses. If their debut EP Like a Machine is the apocalypse, it's certainly …