Category: Reviews – Vinyl
Metal still sounds best on large, round pieces of pressed vinyl. The smell, the artwork – and it gets played through a needle.
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Prodigy – Keep It Thoro (12″ picture disc single)
It’s kind of incredible to think about just how much the “single” has changed as a format over the years. When singles first gained popularity, their construct was simple: a hit song was collected from a long-playing record, then paired with a song of complementary length and then pressed one-per-side onto a seven-inch record. Simple,…
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Booze & Glory – London Skinhead Crew (12″ die-cut single)
Rare is the single which features the better of two tracks on its B-side, but such is undeniably the case when it comes to Booze & Glory‘s “London Skinhead Crew” 12-inch single. This time out, the London-based punk band unlaces its collective boots a bit and presents a reggae-infused impression of their excellent call-to-arms anthem, “London…
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Old Firm Casuals – s/t EP (12” picture disc reissue)
By the time Lars Frederiksen unveiled Old Firm Casuals in 2010, the singer/guitarist was already very well exposed in the punk rock community. He had already cut his teeth with U.K. Subs in 1991, gained pop (and pop-punk) stardom with Rancid beginning in 1993 and “gone solo” with The Bastards in addition to taking a…
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Andrew WK – You’re Not Alone 2LP
An epiphany: since first appearing on the pop music radar in 2001 with the release of his debut album, I Get Wet, Andrew Wilkes-Krier has chased the idea and image of a perfect party as well as producing a genuinely kinetic soundtrack for such an event with little thematic deviation (obvious exception being the piano-focused,…
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Gang Of Youths – Go Farther In Lightness (2LP)
For the nearly half-century since the genre’s inception now, one of the few steadfast foundations upon which punk rock has stood has been nihilism. Consistently, the spirit of punk has been one of “Fuck it all – strip the music down to the barest essentials and get emotionally dark and bleak – at least that…
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Ford Madox Ford – This American Blues LP
Remember a couple of decades ago when, against some fairly long odds, The Blasters managed to cross-wire punk rock and Americana/roots music? The results were pretty cool – the group actually did manage to break onto the popular radar for a minute (with some help from Quentin Tarantino and the soundtrack from From Dusk Til…
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Vamos – 1,2,3 LP
The problem with every great music revival is that, as energizing and exciting as it might be, there’s a certain safety and security in knowing that the ideas involved have worked before and can work again in a walk – if enough people believe in it. Such thought processes have worked well several times over…
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No Joy / Sonic Boom – s/t EP (12″ coloured vinyl)
Ever had one of those moments when you heard or read about a new musical project from a couple of established musicians, got excited as your imagination began to run wild with the possibilities of what may come from the endeavor, and then learned that you couldn’t have been more right when you got a…
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Fucked and Bound – Suffrage LP
Full disclosure: on my first play through Suffrage, I accidentally had my turntable set to the incorrect speed. Because of that, my first judgement was that the band’s sound was thick, dark, sludgy and imposing – but it definitely piqued my interest and curiosity. I was fascinated by the hulking, demonic voice which dominated the…
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Art Bergmann – The Apostate LP
In Canada (which, let’s face it, is a country packed with musicians who are underrated on the international stage), there is simply no musician more criminally underrated and under-appreciated than Art Bergmann. Since first appearing on the Vancouver punk and indie rock scenes in the eighties, Bergmann has regularly had to fight to get popular…