Editor’s Note: along with the move to the new site, we’re implementing some other changes to our regular features. As you may have noticed, we’ve expanded our news section, added streams of full albums, and changed the format of our shorter reviews. Rather than being delivered to you all at once every Tuesday in our weekly Album Survey, shorter reviews are published on a daily basis and are now called QuickTunes.
This, of course, results in some changes to our modus operandi concerning Album Surveys. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback on the feature, so I don’t want to discontinue it, but since we’re publishing reviews regularly, we don’t need to overload you in the weekly survey. Instead, I will simply link to each review, give a little information concerning it, and post a short excerpt that will hopefully titillate your curiosity. We’ll be playing around with the format until we find something that works well, so don’t be surprised if the Album Survey looks different next week. Leave us any suggestions in the comments!
-Jordy Kasko, editor
Reviews from the Week of October 1-8
James Blake – Enough Thunder EP
Genre: Electronic / Experimental
“He retains every single essentiality of dubstep, but he strips it down, turning it into something unfamiliar. To have this record move you is to be subject to a confluence of very specific stimuli: it needs to be dark, you need to be alone, and a little tipsy.” -Alex Hall
Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Wolfroy Goes to Town
Genre: Folk
“Wolfroy is one of Oldham’s slowest, most contemplative works, like a musky cellar or a foggy, peaceful sunrise. It may be his most emotionally vibrant since I See a Darkness, scraping heartstrings, whispering past, and goin’ down-home.” -Jordy Kasko
DJ Shadow – The Less You Know, the Better
Genre: Hip-Hop / Electronic
“It’s not that DJ Shadow doesn’t want to make another Endtroducing….. – it’s that he can’t. This is an insulated record with plenty of strong tracks, but its fatal flaw is its total lack of cohesion, even though there are several reprises throughout.” -Alex Hall
Feist – Metals
Genre: Indie Pop / Folk
“Metals is the sound of zero pretension, total focus, and a complete disregard for any proper pop follow-up she’s supposed to release. This record is among the best of the year, though it is much too modest to let you know.” -Alex Hall
Indigo Girls – Beauty Queen Sister
Genre: Pop-Rock / Country / Folk
“The album sounds cohesive and coherent; there’s an homogenous approach to every song, but even if this will sound like another entry into the catalogue for die-hard fans, it may simply be boring to other listeners.” -Maria Rosaria di Lecce
J. Cole – Cole World: The Sideline Story
Genre: Rap
“Often Cole is outshined by himself. His decision to include Drake, who sounds miles more plaintive and mature, and Jay-Z, who hits home as accurately as his beloved city’s Babe Ruth, fractures the structural integrity of the album.” -Alex Hall
Jack’s Mannequin – People and Things
Genre: Pop-Rock
“This round, McMahon took the time to stop and breathe and found himself far more grounded and stable than before; in his reflections of the past few years, he found his muse for People and Things.” -Michelle Thompson
The Kooks – Junk of the Heart
Genre: Alternative Rock / Pop-Rock
“The record’s 12 tracks speak to the title: ‘Junk of the Heart’ is the perfect line to describe what’s inside this album. All of the songs are about love, relationships, and the emotions they bring forth.” -Maria Rosaria di Lecce
LIGHTS – Siberia
Genre: Electropop
“LIGHTS panders to mainstream radio far more often that she strays from it: she plays with dubstep elements, crafts idealistic romance on lovesongs, and brings it all home with a piano ballad and experimental electrostatic.” -Jordy Kasko
Loney Dear – Hall Music
Genre: Indie Pop
“Every track has distinct melodic lines and sounds that weave in and out of focus, and though Svanängen’s soothing vocals are at the center of most of them, he is almost lost in the complex production.” -Edie Adams
Lydia – Paint It Golden
Genre: Indie Pop-Rock
“The best moments meander along the same paths as Lydia’s past work, but it stays grounded rather than soaring and diving. It’s a fine album — easily a better release than Assailants — but that’s all it is. Just fine.” -Jordy Kasko
Mayday Parade – Mayday Parade
Genre: Pop-Punk
“Their third album won’t go down as the most raw and emotional, but it is solid – if only because good pop-punk albums are so few and far between lately that simply releasing some relatively enjoyable material qualifies as ‘solid.’” -Jordy Kasko
Modeselektor – Monkeytown
Genre: Electronic
“‘I saw you getting jiggy at Sundance with no pants on.’ Electronic act Modeselektor obviously aren’t taking everything seriously on their third album. But that isn’t the most amusing lyric on the album — it has several.” -Ryan Danesh
Nero – Welcome Reality
Genre: Dance
“It has a lot of potential and could’ve been a much better record if Nero didn’t rely on the heavy bass in all the tracks. After each song, you start to wonder, ‘Will people still be interested in this music in five years?’” -Ryan Danesh
New Found Glory – Radiosurgery
Genre: Pop-Punk
“The music here should feel familiar to you if you grew up with NFG and their ilk — feedback, distorted power chords, a puerile-yet-transcedent mix of whining and wisdom. This is pop-punk as it was being played a decade ago.” -Jordy Kasko
Prince Rama – Trust Now
Genre: World / Psychedelic Pop
“A 35-minute collection of something between cavernous Eastern pop and chanted religious rites; the entire album feels like a mystical experience, not so much otherworldly as transcendent.” -Jordy Kasko
Relient K – K Is for Karaoke
Genre: Pop-Punk
“An on-and-off covers album that simultaneously excites the listener for its joyful, wholesome pop-punk interpretations and disappoints him by not taking the tracks quite far enough.” -Jordy Kasko
Various Artists – Batman: Arkham City – The Album
Genres: Rock, Electronic, Alternative, Indie, & Pop-Rock
“Hell no, this ain’t a soundtrack. According to the press release, it is 11 new songs from artists who ‘approached their contributions to the album with their own unique interpretations of the stories surrounding Batman.’” -Jordy Kasko
Zucchero – Chocabeck
Genre: Italian Pop-Rock
“What hits you while listening to Chocabeck is the great expressivity in singing and in the music itself. The album gives us a new image of Zucchero, one painted by his memories, as he sings out his soul in such an intense way.” -Maria Rosaria di Lecce
Loading ...
