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.
-
Roadside Bombs – Best of the Best / 45
It’s pretty uncommon for a punk band to publicly praise a music journalist (not that it NEVER happens, just that it doesn’t happen regularly) so when Roadside Bombs doesn’t just praise a critic, they put his face on the A-side of a single and publicly promote him as being “The Best of The Best,” it…
-
Weird Owl – Bubblegum Brainwaves LP
Weird Owl is a genuine anomaly in the music industry in several ways: since forming in 2004, the group has not let anything – not lineup changes, not label changes, not changes in focus or sound – deter them from keeping a consistent release schedule. The band’s fifth full-length (sixth release) finds the band nailing…
-
Butthole Surfers – Locust Abortion Technician 10” EP
At first glance, it’s hard not to smirk a little at the design, intention and construct of the Locust Abortion Technician EP. The Butthole Surfers have broken their decade-long silence with a celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of their Locust Abortion Technician album and, to mark the occasion, they’ve reissued thirty percent (roughly) of the album…
-
This Means War – S/T 10” EP
The catch, when it comes to trying to be in a good melodic hardcore band, is that trying to navigate the waters of punk rock is fraught with risk because the region is so over-populated. Unfortunately, there are lots of “melodic hardcore” bands which aren’t particularly melodic (read: the singer can’t carry a tune on…
-
Oranssi Pazuzu – Kevät / Värimyrsky EP
Eerily ethereal, beautifully brutal. These are a few bits of dark matter that have slipped through the cracks of Oranssi Pazuzu‘s ever expanding galaxy of recordings. From the band via the 20 Buck Spin website: “Although not ‘new’ in every sense of the word – the first song ‘Kevät’ was recorded during Valonielu sessions in…
-
Birds – Everything All At Once LP
Birds’ new album, Everything All At Once, rightly commands attention It might sound contrived to someone who has yet to experience it themselves, but the idea that great music is capable of moving a listener spiritually and emotionally is a very real thing. On the right day, the first listen to a record can excite…
-
Justin Townes Earle – Kids On The Street LP
After being toasted first and then either critically maligned or flat out ignored for a little while thereafter, Justin Townes Earle has made a sound on his seventh album (first for New West Records) that any critic worth his sand simply cannot ignore. After all the hard luck, Earle had some addiction issues and he…
-
Crim – Blau sang, Vermell cel LP
The catch, when it comes to working within any pop music-based form (and, as inconvenient as it is to say, punk rock definitely falls into that category), is that language plays a key role in the music’s accessibility. Simply said, if a band’s not speaking the mother tongue of the country they’re playing to, they’ve…
-
North Mississippi Allstars – Prayer For Peace
The terms and conditions for being regarded as an “artistic dynasty” are vague and often vary from band-to-band but, without question or argument, the Dickinson family fits the bill. First, there was Jim Dickinson. For forty-six years, Jim Dickinson was present in one capacity or another (either as an “artist” or as a “producer”) to…
-
The Chemical Brothers – Born In The Echoes (2LP reissue)
After over a quarter century of holding dance clubs hostage with some of the most well-known club-pop ever to also grace radio airwaves, the question has become how The Chemical Brothers have held the the venerable position they have. They are some of the most visible purveyors of dance club music and culture after all and, in…