Authors: Ryan Michael Painter
Review: Starflyer 59 – Talking Voice VS. Singing Voice
Starflyer 59 Talking Voice VS. Singing Voice Tooth & Nail I’ve listened to this album for a couple months trying to sort out how I feel about it. I’ve come up with this: Starflyer 59 make sugar-coma pop music. It’s epic in a small box theater, but not exactly made for big booming stadiums. It
Review: Singapore Sling – Life Is Killing My Rock’N’Roll
SINGAPORE SLING LIFE IS KILLING MY ROCK’N’ROLL Stinky Singapore Sling’s debut album, The Curse of Singapore Sling, was greeted by over-anxious critics who hailed this Icelandic import as the rising sun. I was numbered among those critics. This isn’t to say they weren’t worthy of a little attention. Their sonic wall of distorted haze was
Review: Silver Sunshine – Self-Titled
SILVER SUNSHINE SILVER SUNSHINE Empyrean Records Silver Sunshine are a delightful little group of San Diego musicians that are clearly in love with psychedelic pop. They’re quite talented, have some good hooks here and there and capture the sound that the Stone Roses used on their Second Coming release, but in this case, you can’t
Review: S – Puking & Crying
S PUKING & CRYING Suicide Squeeze S are the reversed reflection or negative print of Postal Service with the duo of Josh Wackerly and Jenn Ghetto steering the runaway rollercoaster of songs crafted with female vocals, guitar-driven structures and electronic touches with results that are both intimate and brooding, while only sacrificing the oversaturated pop
Review: Rachel Goswell – Waves are Universal
RACHEL GOSWELL WAVES ARE UNIVERSAL 4AD Rachel Goswell: You might not recognize the name, but I’d have a hard time believing that someone who has any interest in my column wouldn’t have heard her voice in either Slowdive or Mojave 3. Her solo debut is as stunning as Neil Halstead’s (also in both previously mentioned
Review: Rosetta Stone – Adrenaline Deluxe
Rosetta Stone Adrenaline Deluxe Cleopatra In the late 80s, goth had become a bombastic beast that for better or worse was bent on imploding. It had grown from the small seedy clubs of London into the ugly stepchild the UK press tried to edit out of the family photos. No surprise then, that by the
Review: Random Hymns EP – GSL
Random Hymns EP GSL This one might scramble your brains a bit in the traditional Gold Standard way. Punk in attitude, freeform in structure, drenched in organs thrust along by the occasional drum bit stolen from The Cure’s Pornography. Random Hymns drops you down the rabbit hole and dares you to climb out. It
Review: Primal Scream – Chaosmosis
Primal Scream = New Order + Happy Mondays + Blur
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Review: PJ Harvey – The Hope Six Demolition Project
PJ Harvey = Bad Seeds + Tom Waits + Mars Williams
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Review: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – The Punishment of...
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark = Kraftwerk + Roxy Music … read more