Tag: rock
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The Nude Party – s/t LP
As one listens to The Nude Party‘s self-titled album, it’s instantly easy to pick out some sounds and ideas which may have inspired the music, but not so easy to figure out how all the pieces might have aligned to produce this result. For example, the haunting keyboards which color the songs on The Nude…
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Hawkwind – Road To Utopia
Years ago, whilst writing an article on Hawkwind’s seminal Warrior At The Edge Of Time, I asked my friend Crin of Godreah Records to sum up Hawkwind in a single sentence. Godreah released a very good Hawkwind tribute compiled by Crin, so he knows the band well. He replied that Hawkwind were and are “a British…
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American Aquarium – Things Change LP
Usually when I’m reviewing vinyl records, I try to present my thoughts in a linear manner – from front to back, A-side through B-. In my mind, it just makes sense; unlike on CDs (where it’s really easy to jump around from song to song as a listener likes), records play best song-by-song and bands…
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Arthur Buck s/t
Full honesty and disclosure: I’ve been a really big fan of R.E.M. for a really long time and approached Arthur Buck’s self-titled debut album with no small amount of trepidation. I didn’t want to risk sullying my memory of Peter Buck – but it turns out I needn’t have worried. In fact, by crossing Buck’s…
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Monster Truck – True Rockers
Fresh off the road from opening for the legendary Deep Purple in Europe, Monster Truck hit the studio to record the follow up to 2016’s Sittin’ Heavy. True Rockers, available on 9/14/2018 from Dine Alone Records is holds its own against the band’s brilliant back catalog. Monster Truck is a band that has clearly carved…
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Clutch – Book of Bad Decisions
One advantage of running your own label is that you don’t have anyone telling you what NOT to put on the album. Maybe that explains why Clutch’s 12th studio record ended up as a 15 track, 57-minute monstrosity. Not that there are any songs that really don’t belong on here… they just maybe could’ve trimmed…
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Brant Bjork – Mankind Woman
The press release for this record was all talking about how this is Brant Bjork’s most political album yet, cuz apparently you gotta be political to sell records in this day and age. But when I listen to Mankind Woman, I don’t hear politics—it’s all about the grooves, maaaaan! This 11-track effort kicks off with…
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The Flaming Lips – Greatest Hits Volume 1 (LP)
As a general rule, I must confess that Best-Of compilations seldom thrill me. While the odd set does prove to be the rule’s exception (like Nirvana’s black album, the set that Morphine released several years ago, ChangesoneBowie, Hot Rocks and All For Nothing/Nothing For All turned out to all be great sets), most best-of comps…
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BOOK REVIEW: David Bowie in Darkness
A Study of 1. Outside and the Late Career Written by Nicholas P. Greco There are probably more books written about David Bowie covering the period from Space Oddity to Ashes to Ashes than the later stages of his career, as these were so long considered his ‘Golden Years’. Yet Bowie always created interesting music, none more…
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Graveyard – Peace
They’re back from the dead. Gothenburg rockers Graveyard were at the forefront of the whole retro-rock revival of the late aughts, with 2011’s Hisingen Blues serving as one of the finest examples of modern-day Led Zeppelin worship to these ears. After breaking up in 2016, albeit for a couple months, they’ve returned with their first…