Category: Reviews – Vinyl

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the LP + 7” reissue of Peculiar by The Slackers. I remember the first time The Slackers released Peculiar in 2006 (back then, it came our on Hellcat Records). At that time, I was only a few years into working in the music press. I had a…

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Take The Light With You LP by Wildlife. Sometimes the arrival of a record doesn’t bring with it a spectacular introduction – in fact, it would be easy enough to overlook some albums completely on the wrong day – but those albums can sneak up on…

 For novelty’s sake, let’s address all of the obvious potential talking points to be found about Noi!se’s UV Digitally printed 12” “Lost” single. Yes, it looks really, really cool. Yes, I think that stranding a three-and-a-half-minute song all alone on a 12” vinyl record is a questionable use of resources, regardless of how cool it…

 As good or remarkable as any band would eventually prove themselves to be, history has proven conclusively that it’s truly rare for any band to arrive that way (see Nirvana, Ween, Wilco… for examples of bands which developed over time) out of the proverbial box. In that regard, The Glands were no exception; when they…

Easily the most underrated hardcore band since the genre’s inception in the early Eighties has been the Circle Jerks. The reason that claim is so easy to make is that, pound-for-pound and album-for-album, they broke a surprising amount of ground that a lot of bands would tread upon (and make a lot more money from) later. When the band…

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Slackers’ 12″ UV digitally printed vinyl single. Ignoring the, “Gee whiz!” quality of The Slackers’ new single [the “Nobody’s Listening 12” features music on one side and a graphic on the other –ed] as well as the talking point of, “Well, this is a new way of combining digital…

 It’s pretty uncommon for me to wonder where I was when I review a reissue of an album which was originally released after 2002 (a.k.a. the year I joined the press). That is not to say there weren’t great albums that I didn’t get my hands on to review when they were new, it’s simply…

There’s a certain comfort which can be found in a record which, while new, sounds familiar. As albums like that play, it can be pretty easy for a listener to sigh as a turntable’s stylus finds its intended groove and each cut seems to spontaneously align and produce an accessible, pleasing sensation for its audience.…

 More than the other things that Songs! From The Bathroom Stall? certainly represents for Houston and the Dirty Rats, the most important rule to keep in mind when listening  to the band’s new EP is that it’s unwise to judge a book by its cover. Were one to delve no deeper than just a superficial…

The problematic thing about albums which come to be regarded as “culturally significant” is that, after it has been released and that cultural significance presents itself on a larger scale, EVERYONE whats to get their hands on it and tool around with it in order to put their fingerprints on it and make it their…