Author: Bill Adams
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The Flaming Lips – Heady Nuggs, 1994-1997: 20 Years After Clouds Taste Metallic
As most fans know, The Flaming Lips had already gone through a few semi-seamless transitions by the time they were ready to begin making Clouds Taste Metallic. By then, they’d already been DIY Okie punks and goth-y pseudo rockers, and had even managed to sort of put together an arresting estimation of their first genuinely…
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Mastodon – White Walker (12” picture disc)
When fans first hear the “White Walker” 12-inch picture disc, the first thought which will pass through their minds (ALL of their minds) will likely be, “Wow – this doesn’t sound like Mastodon at all.” There’s no arguing that; “White Walker” has none of the metallic crunch that albums like Leviathan, Crack The Skye or…
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David Bowie – Blackstar LP
It’s amazing how outside factors can affect the qualities of the music on an album and change its focus. Any number of stimuli could play an active role in the change – the medium through which the music is presented (be it vinyl record, compact disc, cassette or mp3 – whatever), the players who contributed…
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The Psychedelic Sound of The Thirteenth Floor Elevators LP
It’s unlikely that anyone would disagree that The 13th Floor Elevators are a really important band in the evolution of rock. Most would cite the band’s debut album as all the proof anyone could need to make the point: “What is it which makes The Psychedelic Sound of The Thirteenth Floor Elevators a classic album?”…
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David Bowie – Earthling LP
Leave it to David Bowie to wrap a perfectly tongue-in-cheek idea in populist medium and make a celebration of it. That is, of course, precisely what the singer has done in licensing Earthling for a fresh vinyl pressing now, almost twenty years after the album was originally released. Confused reader? Let me clarify it for…
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Rush – Grace Under Pressure LP
Perhaps the most important thing that Rush proved when they released Grace Under Pressure is that (to paraphrase what George Orwell wrote in 1984) the best albums are those which reiterate those things of which people were already aware. In this case, fans already knew that Rush had been the greatest and best-kept secret in…
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JEFF The Brotherhood – Global Chakra Rhythms
It may have taken an unfortunate, poor experience with Warner Brothers to get JEFF The Brotherhood to start pushing the possibilities of what they could do with their music (the label didn’t really love the music and shelved a couple of the band’s releases during their tenure together) but, now that Global Chakra Rhythms is…
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Slash – Raised On The Sunset Strip Blu-Ray
Historians and critics may curse Raised On The Sunset Strip for presenting a documentary which features some pretty plainly revisionist history of the L.A. rock scene of the 1980s in general and Guns N’ Roses in specific, but there’s no way to deny that the film tells a really interesting story – at least at…
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Cancer Bats – Searching For Zero LP
Leave it to Cancer Bats to challenge metal convention by scaling back the production values which are normally strapped to metal albums (“bombastic” is an understatement) and just let the raw aggression and technical talent which is present in every damned microtone of each song be the things which make the album’s stylistic ambition undeniable…
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Dilly Dally – Sore LP
As music in general, Dilly Dally’s debut album, Sore, is incredible (not for nothing did it end up appearing on this writer’s Top Ten of 2015 list) – but the vinyl presentation of the album transcends such praise and offers listeners an experience several steps beyond that of the compact disc. It’s unbelievable. It’s a…