First Listen: Death Blues, ‘Ensemble’
Jon Mueller is thinking about death. It sounds like a hammer hitting an acoustic guitar. William Ryan Fritch joins the Volcano Choir drummer for a blown-out, hyper-real orchestra of the self.
Jon Mueller is thinking about death. It sounds like a hammer hitting an acoustic guitar. William Ryan Fritch joins the Volcano Choir drummer for a blown-out, hyper-real orchestra of the self.
The New York post-punk band has aged into its polished sound nicely, maintaining its influences (Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, et al) while sounding more distinct from them than ever.
Nick Zammuto, formerly of the art-music duo The Books, takes a crafty, hands-on, spirit-forged approach to sound. The newer band that bears his name never bothers to stay in place for long.
Over memorable hooks and wickedly inventive grooves, Ahmed Gallab sings in an earnest, persuasive voice. Sinkane’s music conjures East and West African music, James Brown, free jazz and shoegaze.
The last decade has seen a marked softening in Blonde Redhead’s sound, to the point where the quietest moments on Barragán don’t sound like songs so much as vapors infused with tunes.
This rowdy, ramshackle party house of a band is built on the intersecting bedrock of post-punk and indie rock. On Poor People Are Revolting, there’s something crazy going on in every room.
The British band borrows from the best to contextualize a sound that’s at once heavy, sinister, tuneful and theatrical, piling on the fuzz and reverb until its songs practically foam at the mouth.
In its outermost extremes, this excoriating, enervating music offers the promise of a cleansing, like greasy hands scoured with gritty soap. But it’s got sensitivity and a sense of craft, too.
It’s easy to feel the romance in the musical relationship between Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst, who’ve become musical embodiments of how loving couples make it work.
Though not entirely unplugged, Tied to a Star showcases the soft intricacy of a veteran craftsman who knows when to hang back and decide to pulverize another day.
If the Staten Island band has a unifying philosophy, it’s that rock music is a negotiable solid, one that should be assembled with great energy and not-inconsiderable exertion.
More than half the songs on Blue Dream feature the word “love” somewhere, and every moment of Fink’s performance sounds as if it’s being sung into someone’s ear, not a microphone.
Flashing both the raw talent of a recruit and the acumen of a much older musician, the singer-guitarist’s self-titled debut shows off both his youth and his grasp of past musical forms.
A soft, breezy summer record, Tudo lives up to Gilberto’s status as a member of Brazilian musical royalty. It strikes the perfect mix of chill and melancholy that’s become her specialty.
Sparks documents a fruitful time for one of popular music’s most curious explorers. But it also captures how, in the 21st century, art, technology and life meld to make whole new narratives.
She’s working with refracted echoes of sounds that came before, but Kimbra makes them golden on her second album. Throughout The Golden Echo, she has a grand time testing the limits of her music.
Summery but subtle, Lights Out is the sound of a band that’s mastered the art of quality control, just in time to release an album that’s all highlights.
The Trinidadian soca star is ready to follow up on the success of his breakthrough single, “Differentology.”
On V, the Swedish duo strikes a curious balance among wildly divergent sounds. Along the way, it draws from cringe-worthy soft pop, indie-rock, and cutting-edge R&B and hip-hop.
A ferociously intelligent singer-songwriter, Jaffe never stops inventing, reinventing, exploring and reflecting on her (and our) place in a forbidding, foreboding world.