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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Eels – Electro-Shock Blues 2LP
It may have occurred by accident or it may have happened by design but, regardless, few alt-rock albums made in the late Nineties (a.k.a. the peak of the compact disc’s reign as the recorded music format of choice) were so ideally suited to being pressed on vinyl as Eels‘ Electro-Shock Blues. The pacing of the…
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Neal Hefti – Record Store Day (Black Friday) Batman 7” single
“Batman Theme” b/w “The Batusi” – Record Store Day (Black Friday) 7” single It might sound like earnest overreaching to contend at first, but the “Batman Theme” written by Neal Hefti and featured (in varying lengths) at the beginning of every episode of the original Batman television series broadcast from 1966 to 1968 of ABC…
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Rush – Signals LP
Just one year after they began to challenge both themselves and their audience with new songwriting ideas and compositional presentations on Moving Pictures, Rush elected to ride that wave of inspiration with Signals – their ninth LP and second of a new era. Right off, there’s no question that Signals takes its lead from Moving…
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Judas Priest – Painkiller 10” single
Hey – remember that period of time when the lights went out in Judas Priest? There have been a few reasons for the stall proposed over the years, but the truth is that it really needed to happen. Painkiller (the band’s twelfth studio album) was a portrait of a band running on creative fumes and on…
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Rush – Moving Pictures LP
It is often regarded as an inconvenient truth, but the fact is that it becomes increasingly difficult for a band to change or take artistic risks as they get further into their career. A lot of that difficulty may come from the band’s perceived responsibility to their fans; the people watching and listening were the…
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Foo Fighters – s/t LP (reissue)
It feels strange to be discussing the twentieth anniversary of Foo Fighters‘ debut album now – just months after Universal Music Enterprises celebrated the same anniversary for the release of Nirvana’s In Utero album. It seems weird because, while the original releases of those albums were only twenty-two months apart, they feel as though they…
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The Descendents – Milo Goes To College
Fans and critics have been arguing which punk band has been the most influential for decades, but the decision has yet to be made. Claims have been made that The Clash are the most important group to punk because they made so many crossovers into the mainstream, while others contend that punk rock would not…
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Harrington Saints – Fish & Chips EP
The coolest thing about Harrington Saints‘ new EP is the fact that, unless you were tipped off and are expecting what the band has in store (like, if you already read this review – for example), you won’t be expecting to get your mind blown or your face melted. The reason for that really is…
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Gateway Drugs – Magick Spells LP (vinyl review)
The idea that a change of something as seemingly inconsequential as the format on which an album is presented (be it CD, cassette, vinyl record or mp3) can change the listening experience completely may seem unbelievable, but that does not mean it isn’t true and cannot happen. Of course the medium (format) that one is…
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Lenny Lashley – U.S. Mail die-cut single
I’m rarely impressed by die-cut vinyl releases. I mean, sure – oddly shaped music-playing vinyl is neat to look at. But that just can’t be all it is for me; I need good music to come out of it when the needle touches it because the music is the important part of the package, right?…