Scout Niblett – It’s Up To Emma (Drag City)
There’s not much room for ‘fun’. No room for pom poms and a nihilistic refrain chanted ad nauseum like it’s a game. It’s straight down the line fucked upness, which is appropriate given the album is wedded so tightly to a heart that’s been badly burned.
Kula Shaker – K (Sony)
The London dreamers have borrowed their favourite parts from music’s past to create a headrush of love and mysticism
Wampire – Curiosity (Polyvinyl)
I know plenty of people who will never, just based on the annoying dipshit band name alone, ever listen to this.
Six alternative reviews of the new Primal Scream album More Light
Edgy, like pulling the wings off butterflies.
John Blonde – Autothysis (Estuary)
“I wanted to humanize the computer, show its dynamism. I see myself as an aesthetician of emotionalism. If people see me in my johnnie, maybe they can see all the heart I’m pouring into this machine.”
Beaches – She Beats (Chapter Music)
Beaches have chosen to exist as a small, heavily populated planet in a universe of infinite possibilities and sounds. And that is never a cause for celebration.
Permanent Makeup – The Void…It Creeps (New Granada/No Clear)
It starts out in the world of Sonic Youth — a tinny, anemic charming version of SY — before shooting off in the direction of Sun City Girls, Minutemen rants with Pere Ubu paranoia
Deerhunter – Monomania (4AD)
I don’t like praising records for their focus and consistency — makes me feel like I’m in a corporate boardroom or something.
The 49 Americans – E Pluribus Unum/We Know Nonsense (Staubgold)
The 49 Americans were an experiment in the pursuit of happiness.
The Flaming Lips – The Terror (Bella Union)
It seems this experience has totally renewed my enjoyment of all that other Flaming Lips stuff that I play in the daytime
A review of ‘Arc’ by Everything Everything that absolutely takes issue with everything the NME and the Tories stand for
The words come tumbling out of Jonathan Higgs’ mouth like so many bright bees, clouds and clouds of them buzzing about, so numerous and sharp such that their ingenuity, volume and ambition remind me of Joanna Newsom’s meticulous verses. He conjures up drone strikes, billionaires, footballers’ wives, broken war-heroes, landmines, volcanoes, rioters, pterodactyls, post-apocalyptic landscapes, revelatory visions. Not a waistcoat in sight.
A review of ‘Mosquito’, the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album, based only on the press release
Nice to know there’s a deluxe album but it might as well be a complete fucking Smithsonian Library of Recorded Yeah Yeah Yeahs Burps for all it matters to us, as we sure as shit ain’t going to be hearing it any time soon.
Dick Diver – Calendar Days (Chapter Music)
They don’t describe forests, or even trees, but the feel of bark and the sound of leaves and then leave the rest for you.
A review of ‘Wolf’ by Tyler, The Creator based only on the front cover
Ultimately, this cover is showing that Tyler knows. And he’s grown. Oh, how he’s grown. From chirpy chirpy creep creep to troubled young resentful mogul.
Blanche Blanche Blanche – Wooden Ball (NNA Tapes)
The future of adventurous US music can be found in the hinterlands. Don’t go to them; they’ll come to you.
Camperdown & Out – Couldn’t Be Better (Popfrenzy)
Couldn’t Be Better is so disinterested in any reality I’ve ever experienced that it’s impossible to connect.
Ensemble Pearl – Ensemble Pearl (Drag City)
Imagine a German Dirty Three. Of if you’re feeling cynical, imagine a 10-year-old boy pretending to be a monster, stomping all over Tokyo in a nuclear-induced haze.
A review of ‘Comedown Machine’ by The Strokes based only on the front cover
Their music is supermarket fodder, created with precisely the same love and attention to detail as a pack of frozen peas
A review of ‘Muchacho’ by Phosphorescent based only on the front cover
Is it irresponsible to write an album review without having heard a single note from said album? Maybe. It would probably depend on the album.
Primitive Motion – Home Of The Future (Kindling)
It reminds me of someone in a book I once read, describing a heroin high as like floating on a sea of jewels, which scares the hell out of me because it sounds incredible.
Beat Mark – Howls Of Joy (Ample Play)
Here’s an official video. It’s better than Veronica Falls, I guess.
Blank Realm – Go Easy (Fire)
Go Easy is a radical jukebox. Go Easy is lying in your backyard, stoned in the sun. Go Easy is a top-down ride down a wide avenue with tall palm trees on either side.
Hair Police – Mercurial Rites (Type)
Now this is some real grisly shit right here. Forget your Swans, forget your Big Black, forget your Danish bands of dubious intelligence
