Grimes – Visions (Arbutus Records/4AD)
Visions seduces me a little more, yet at the same time, I know I will never truly love it
Coasting – You’re Never Going Back (M’Lady)
If The White Stripes had been obsessed with Flying Nun instead of the blues and Led Zeppelin, it would have sounded like this. For someone like me, it’s absolute heaven.
Fucked Up – Year Of The Tiger (Matador)
If I wanted some beefy, macho shithead to yell at me, I’d join the Marines. Or call my fucking dad.
Royal Baths – Better Luck Next Life (Kanine)
Better Luck Next Life is the sound of aristocratic decay. It’s spiritual exhaustion, the crumbling of an empire into petty, isolated camps of self-degradation.
of Montreal – Paralytic Stalks (Polyvinyl)
It’s a concept album about the fall of decadence, the inability to live any longer wrapped within one’s bullshit, the sound of someone pulling back the curtain on their personal Satyricon and recoiling in disgust.
The B-52’s @ The Classic Center, Athens, Ga, 09.02.12
It just makes you want to smash up a mic stand. It just makes you want to dive into the drum kit. It just makes you want to scream and whoop and holler and call up the dead.
Eleanor Friedberger @ The Famous Spiegeltent, Sydney, 29.01.12
‘Lost At Sea’ is better. The guitar is no longer wielded like an apology. From here it’s going to be all right (as in everything is right not merely alright).
Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas (Sony)
LC follows the template he’s been following for the last 20 years. He’s still peddling his bedroom songs for the educated letch.
Laneway Festival @ RNA Showground, Brisbane, 28.01.12
I hate music festivals because I love music, and I mean properly love music. Real love is unhealthy, obsessive, consuming. I am outside Music’s house in defiance of a restraining order. I am frightening off Music’s new boyfriend. I am holding Music’s pets to ransom until Music agrees to return my calls.
Cloud Nothings – Attack On Memory (Carpark)
The anger on this album feels pretty real and palpable to me.
The Weeknd – House Of Balloons / Thursday / Echoes Of Silence (XO)
Sex, drugs, more sex, more drugs, each song details another night of Bacchanalian excess with no redemption in sight. Are you ready to party?
Balam Acab – Wander/Wonder (Tri-Angle)
It’s the difference between internet porn and actual sex, between Beavis and Bolaño, amusement and art.
Trailer Trash Tracys – Ester (Double Six/Domino)
Ester is a perfect debut album. It suggests that the Tracys are liable to head in any direction, including some we haven’t even imagined.
Guided By Voices – Let’s Go Eat The Factory (Fire)
Robert Pollard’s language is a universe that is both abstract and familiar, a poetry informed by gray skies and basements, used cars and starch.
Howler – America Give Up (Rough Trade)
Don’t mistake that album title for something so outdated as a point-of-view. As far as I can tell, Howler music is pretty much content-free.
She And Him – A Very She And Him Christmas (Merge, 2011)
Christmas culture is the ultimate test. Matthew and Zooey have hitched their wagon to that star, and many will judge them for it.
The Greatest Christmas Album Ever Recorded – Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Ultimately, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer is a collection of songs about the struggle to find one’s place in the world — the isolated self-destruction that can occur when someone is rejected by their community.
REVIEWED IN WORDS: Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream (deluxe edition)
After tonight, I swear I’m never gonna laugh at a Christian rock band again.
The Field – Looping State Of Mind (Kompakt)
If I said I liked you better when I was stoned, how would that make you feel about yourself?
THE COLLAPSE BOARD REVIEW The Smiths – The Complete Smiths (Rhino)
They deserve better than this. And so does anyone who ever cared about them.
THE COLLAPSE BOARD REVIEW Kate Bush – 50 Words For Snow (Fish Music/EMI)
There is snow, and there are words. This lengthy, seven-track record, successor to this year’s deck-clearing Director’s Cut, is an album that loves language every bit as much as it loves snow; you can feel delight soaking through the syllables.
