When reviewing a classic album, there’s always the chance you’ll be accused of not “getting it” if your reaction is less than ultra-favorable. I’m quite aware of this, and as I’ve listened to They Might Be Giants quintessential major-label debut Flood over the past month, I’ve done my very best to consider all things; the time period into which it was released, the musical landscape surrounding it, the adjustments or considerations the band may have made when conceiving a record for a major label as opposed to at-home recording - the list goes on. As easy as it would be for an uninformed adolescent to hear this and dismiss it as two nasally poindexters going on about particles, prosthetic foreheads, and grocery bag reincarnations, a long time TMBG fan brushing off a well thought-out argument against Flood with a cognitive dissonance-alleviating “damn kids these days don’t know nuthin’ about good music!” seems just as likely. The fact that emotions often run hot during such discussions is perfectly understandable; for some people, this album was their childhood. Maybe it permeated their college years. Or mid-life. Whatever it may be, from time to time certain artistic works incite profound connections with their audiences. These works actually define periods of people’s lives. From what I’ve read and heard, Flood has that.
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NYSYNC was my first favorite band and The Social Network is one of my favorite films of all time. The common denominator is of course Justin Timberlake. This past January, he announced The 20/20 Experience, his first album in seven years. Its subsequent media blitz only made it feel bigger and bigger, continuing to paint it as the most significant release of 2013 so far. I couldn’t wait to see whether it could live up to its wild expectations. The 20/20 Experience’s ambitious scale makes it feel unlike any album in recent memory, but its best moments leave me wishing that ambition had only informed the craft, not the length.
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Tomahawk is a difficult band for me not to like. Aside from being comprised of members from some of my favorite musical entities (Mike Patton and Trevor Dunn of Mr. Bungle, John Stanier of Battles), the band has an impressive knack for blending the finer attributes of the avant-garde with a sound firmly rooted in good old fashioned rock music. While each of these odd fellows have most certainly participated in musical projects thoroughly stranger than Oddfellows, that doesn’t mean the album lacks appeal, originality, or flow; in fact, it excels in these areas, and has, in the past month or two since its release, managed to single-handedly restore my interest in the idea of straight-ahead songwriting.
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Thom Yorke is at it again. His side project, Atoms for Peace, and its debut album Amok,
takes Radiohead’s lush melodies and forward-moving orchestration and
replaces them with twitchy, multi-layered beats and endless, steady
groove building. This switch in focus isn’t altogether unsurprising from
the man who said 15 years ago, “[I’d] completely had it with melody. I
just wanted rhythm.” However, it seems to have been a much more gradual
process than his extreme agitation then would’ve indicated—every single
Yorke/Radiohead venture since, has prominently featured gorgeous
melodies, while further exploring his rhythmic interest, most notably on
2011’s The King of Limbs.
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"Sirius, do you still want to go home?" The All-Mother computer system
presents this question to astronaut-scientist Sirius Amory as he
descends from the ethereal realm of the Keywork back to his home world.
While this may sound like the climax of a SiFi channel original movie,
it is in fact a line from the post-track narration after "Keywork Entity
Extract V: Sentry the Defiant" on Coheed and Cambria's latest album, The Afterman: Descension. Descension acts as the conclusion of the two-volume Afterman saga,
which focuses on the life and times of Sirius Amory, an important
character in the overarching mythology of the band's music. Those
interested in this mythology likely already know more about it than me,
or should consult lyricist Claudio Sanchez's series...
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Never heard of Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz? It’s okay, I hadn’t either. In this day and age the quickest way to measure someone’s relative fame or prevalence is to see if they have a Wikipedia page dedicated to them or not, and our friend Mr. Blumenkranz assuredly does not. At that point, especially when it comes to artists and musicians, one of two thing is likely to be true: the individual’s work is fairly ordinary and his fans are not numerous or dedicated enough for a Wiki page to exist, or conversely, his stuff is so comprehensively off-the-wall awesome that it’s yet to catch on in any capacity even
beginning to resemble widespread attention. It wasn’t more than ten minutes into
Abraxas when it became clear to me that Blumenkranz and his merry band of avant guitar-wizards fall squarely in the second camp.
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With Korean rapper PSY's super-viral "Gangnam Style" recently becoming
the first youtube video to ever pass one billion hits, we've come to a
crossroads in the status of Asian popular music in the USA. In my view,
one of two things can happen now. It's very possible that PSY and his
unprecedented hit become one trick ponies, slipping away to obscurity in
the next few years, never to be heard of in the West again. However, it
is also possible that we are on the cusp of a new musical invasion.
Whereas the British took over the American radio waves in the 1960s, it
is conceivable that Asian music is about to make a massive splash in the
good old US of A.
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If
you've only ever been exposed to a particular subset of John Zorn's
staggeringly vast and enormously far-flung discography, then the idea of him
putting out a Christmas album might sound to you like something bordering on
the absurd. And that, my friend, is entirely understandable. If, however,
you're privy to the five or so entries in his comparatively mellifluous
"Music Romance" series, then all of a sudden the idea becomes that
much more reasonable, not to mention pleasantly enticing. I'm a big fan of Zorn's
more delicate work, and the original Dreamers record
is one of my all time favorites, so a holiday jam from the same group of guys
is completely up my alley. Plus I freaking love Christmas. The album’s
cover features a cartoony and freakishly thin-looking Santa, but don’t let that
fool you; there’s nothing freakishly thin about the sounds happening on this
here cut of Christmas pie. (People use words like that to describe music,
right? They don’t? Ah, my bad).
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I’m still not quite sure what to make of Nuclear Rabbit. Like many bands from the Bay Area, they can’t easily be placed within a specific genre, but that’s not what addles me. I mean, just what exactly is going on here? You’ve got this spastic, multi-dispositional vocalist spewing lyrics about midgets, clones, and evil embryos that rip their mothers-to-be in half from the inside. Nice. Then you have an impressively savvy bass player and the presumed brains of the operation in Jean Baudin. Guitarists and drummers, meanwhile, have cycled in and out of the ensemble repeatedly since its inception in 1989. The members of the group are all exceedingly talented, yet most of their songs contain farcical lyrics or mini-narratives about freakish individuals or occurrences. I’m not claiming to know what the hell is happening on Mutopia. It’s not always good. It’s usually not bad. But somehow these atom-powered bunnies manage to blend lavish proficiency, complex song structure, and a dash of crude humor into a strange brew that sorta-kinda works. Sometimes.
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Despite their fairly sizable discography, it wouldn’t exactly be accurate to call Secret Chiefs 3 prolific. Full length albums generally come in three to four year intervals, largely due to the near-obsessive manner with which bandleader Trey Spruance tends to every last detail of every release, from composition to recording to post production. Though I think fans appreciate the attention to detail when it’s all said and done, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t like to see more releases. To alleviate this, the band has in recent years attempted to release at least some scrap of something each year, whether it be an album entirely by one of the “satellites” (more on that here), or an EP with just a couple tracks. I wish more bands would do this, as getting new material every year from your favorite band, even just a few tracks, is totally great.
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Let me start this review by being blunt - I've considered Coheed and
Cambria my favorite band since I was 15 years old. Maybe that means I'm
not as biased a reviewer as I could be. Whatever. That being said, The Afterman: Ascension
is a fantastic album, probably one of the best I've listened to all
year. And I'm not just some diehard fan claiming that anything the band
puts out is superior than anything any other band puts out. I actually
think that this is the best Coheed album in years. The band seems to
have learned from everything they've done so far. I can hear little bits
and pieces of all their previous albums in this one. You got the poppy
hooks of their first two albums, the brooding darkness of their third,
the blistering hard rock riffs of their fourth, and just a touch of the
experimental post-rock stuff they were getting into on their fifth. This
album is like a love letter to the band's fan base - there's something
for everyone who has ever been into Coheed and Cambria.
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Sometimes lyrics just get in the way. It’s not uncommon to get so sucked up in what the vocalist is singing that you start to notice less and less of the music you’re listening to. You could love the song, but hate the lyrics, or you could hate a song but love the lyrics. Sometimes, the lyrics get so ingrained in your head that the song starts to feel repetitive. One of the great things about foreign language albums is that the lyrical content can’t get in the way of your opinion (unless you speak the language or put the whole thing through Google Translate). It’s all about the music. Since you can’t understand what the vocalist is singing about, his voice becomes more or less an instrument in itself. Without having to focus on what the words mean, you can really pay attention to how the vocal melodies fit with the instrumentation. Of all the foreign language music I’ve ever listened to (I won’t lie and say that I’ve listened to a lot), Asian Kung-Fu Generation stands out as my favorite band outside the USA.
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FlyLo’s highly anticipated follow-up to 2010’s Cosmogramma entitled Until the Quiet Comes drops this week. Prior to the release, he’s collaborated on a short film with director Kahlil Joseph set in Los Angeles’ Nickerson Gardens community. The LA producer’s music accompanies Joseph’s beautifully captured scenes (on 35mm film, no less) to make for not only a haunting and powerful foreshadowing to the album, but actually something that stands on its own as a concise, artistic achievement. The video includes snippets of three new tracks. First is the already released single, “See Thru to U” in a shorter, but more ethereal and intriguing cut than the hyperactive, drum-driven original release. The central image of this part is a young boy unexpectedly cut down by gunshot and bleeding profusely into an empty swimming pool—chilling, but beautiful. All the while, guest vocalist Erykah Badu sings in a sort of ghostly chanting style, building in intensity to the scene cut.
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I first heard O'Brother about a year and a half ago when they opened for
Manchester Orchestra and Cage the Elephant. My friend and were at the
show to see Manchester Orchestra, but we decided to show up early to
catch the opener. I've always been of the opinion that if you pay for a
ticket, you should get the most out of it that you possibly can. So
we're there early, just hanging back by the bar, when the opener comes
on stage. We see five scrawny guys calmly walk out and grab their
guitars. Doesn't seem like anything special. Maybe some generic punk
band lucky enough to land an slot on the MO/CTE spring tour. Then all of
a sudden, these unassuming Georgia rockers tear into a riff so heavy
and contemplative that my jaw dropped. Their brief set wove between
sludgy distortion and serene clarity over frontman Tanner Merritt's
animalistic growl. By the end of their slot I was blown away. They
gained at least one new fan that day.
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Hey! You there! Want to get into The Deserts of Träun? Fear not, for it is very easy. You must simply keep the following in mind as you listen. “Basically two worlds collide. One of an evil and lonely Black Metal emperor named Träun who is pirating H20 from vulnerable planets in hopes to build the biggest health spa in the galaxy. His terrible affluence leaves only deserts of these once water bearing planets. The protagonist whom discovered an ancient trans-planetary elevator system accidentally/prophetically - depending on who you ask, becomes involved in saving one of many newly desertised planets. Betrayal of a brief love affair with the rescued enigmatic princess delivers the protagonist to a much grander and darker plot that sees him only the receding edges of an unforgiving mire . The Detective Mel Function...
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When listening to Swing Lo Magellan, it’s hard not to feel like the lyrics are intended to be the album’s focus. Sure, you've got all the Dirty Projectors staples - shockingly dynamic female harmonizations, frisky percussion, some very pretty guitar work, and of course Dave Longstreth piping over the whole thing like there’s no tomorrow. It’s all there, but has been decidedly dialed down a notch, instead moving the spotlight to the wonderful poetry that Longstreth and the band have actualized for us in this release. And despite initial reservations, I take no issue with that.
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I’m
going to start this review by ruining my own street cred: I did not
listen to The Receiving End of Sirens when they were still active. I had
friends who listened to them in high school, but I did not. Maybe I
didn’t know about local Boston music. Maybe I thought their name was too
bizarre. Or maybe I just wasn’t hardcore enough. Whatever the reason, I
fully admit that I only started listening to TREOS when they were well
into the “reunion show” phase of their existence. That being said, I
wish I had listened to them seven years ago, because “Between the Heart
and the Synapse” is one of the most incredible albums I’ve listened to
in a long time.
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I’ll admit it - I’m a sucker for concept albums. Something about switching off the lights, shutting your eyes, putting headphones on, and letting yourself drift away as you visualize how the aural incursion that is washing over you would look on the big screen of a movie theater is, for lack of better words, straight-up awesome. Alamaailman Vasarat is no stranger to albums of this sort, and their 2009 release Huuro Kolkko is a fine example. The album details the fascinating and ultimately tragic journey of the late Finnish explorer of the same name, and in my opinion is a serious masterpiece; if not for the music itself then certainly for the amount of imagination and presumably tireless work that went into the whole production. The album art alone - a collection of bugs and scraps Huuro had collected throughout his travels - suggest that the listener is in for a treat.
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