Music
Top 5: Pink Mountaintops
Get Back received mixed reviews across the board—some reviewers lauded the album as a rock n’ roll tour de force (Mojo, PopMatters) and others expressed wishy-washy reactions (Paste, Pitchfork). Most seemed, to some extent, to decry the sixth track, “North Hollywood Microwaves” because Annie Hardy (Giant Drag) raps about the joys of cum, declaring “I am a slut!” amid her blithe confessions of bestiality with donkeys and bears (because men no longer satisfy her). The prank worked. … read more
SLUG Mag’s Top 5 Albums of 2014
Every December, SLUG Magazine sounds the rallying call and gathers the staff’s lists of Top 5 albums from the year. In the next few pages, find a wide range of genres, artists and records that were of note for 2014—with a few other Top 5 beats like video games, comics and movies peppered throughout. … read more
Top 5: Dirty Provo Vol. 1
It seems like Provo’s music scene has been constantly pregnant for the past decade—steadily giving birth to glistening, new indie-rock babes. Jacob Hall recognized this when he moved from Salt Lake City to Provo last May (his cousins offered him a free place to stay). Hall had just emerged from a failed relationship and was taken aback by the community’s support of Provo’s weird yet incredible music scene. … read more
Top 5: Big Wild Wings
Big Wild Wings decided to buck the trends hard by combining a kickass drummer in Chris Soper with a master synth-player in Tyler Hummel, topping it off with the captivating Lyndsi Austin as their lead vocalist on bass. Within the last year, the trio have become the alt/indie band to see in SLC, capping everything off with their debut full-length album, Speaking In Cursive, which came out in November. … read more
Top 5: Ered Wethrin
Just like the epic themes of fantasy and esoteric mysticism that inspired Ered Wethrin’s lyrics, Tides of War takes its time unfolding a vast and enchanting audial world. From the Glen Cook–inspired “Bloody Annals and Brooding Skies” to the Steven Erikson tribute in “Requiem for the Fallen,” Sven Smith’s solo recordings recall the stoic and battle-hardened tales of lesser-known fantasy realms. … read more
Top 5: Pharmakon
Margaret Chardiet crafts industrial noise music under the project name Pharmakon. Over the past few years, she has slowly built a name for herself (and her friends) in an isolated music bunker located in the Far Rockaway, NYC. Chardiet’s work is intended to be experienced live, but for those of us who have not had this opportunity, the Abandon EP is a substitution. … read more
Top 5: my bloody valentine
Twenty years of rumors, side projects and silence after my bloody valentine’s Kevin Shields announced the band’s progress on a follow-up to their shoegaze genesis, Loveless, my bloody valentine self-released m b v along with a deep sigh of relief. Though the band is the brainchild of Irish teenagers in the ’90s, my bloody valentine’s m b v stands out as an organic output incubated into perfection and birthed at just the right moment to head our generation’s reclamation of ’90s attitude and aesthetic. … read more
Top 5: Light/Black
When talking shop over recordings, you sometimes hear of bands “catching lightning in a bottle” with their music. If that analogy rings true, Light/Black didn’t just bottle it, they christened their amps with it. Make no mistake, the way they wrote and structured this album was no accident, nor did they cater to any minor niche group who may not like a certain kind of tone. This is a fucking good, heavy rock album. … read more
Top 5: J.D. Wilkes and the Dirt Daubers
Earlier this year, I was stunned and saddened to hear of the breakup of Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers, the band that Col. J.D. Wilkes fronted and took from obscurity to prominence. With the exit of longtime bass player Mark Robinson, Wilkes decided to start a new chapter with his wife, Jessica Wilkes, who was already a part of J.D.’s mountain string band, The Dirt Daubers. Jessica takes on bass playing and shares lead vocal duties in the new incarnation. … read more
Top 5: Galactic Cannibal
Pist, agitated and frothing at the mouth, We’re Fucked erupts with jovial violence meant as a blueprint for shout-alongs at live punk shows. Reviewers—and the band itself—have dichotomized Galactic Cannibal’s sound as being “pop punk + hardcore,” which skirts that this record is a short, sharp shock of street punk with its catchy gang vocals and major-key progressions coupled with vocalist Peter J Woods’ snarling assault. We’re Fucked, however, transcends these sonic genre conventions … … read more