Review: Aaron Lee Tasjan, ‘Silver Tears’
The Americana innovator invites listeners into a shiny dreamscape that’s both deeply informed by musical history and uniquely his own.
Category: Music Reviews
Review: TOY, ‘Clear Shot’
The British band’s third full-length is proof of just how vivid and inviting psychedelic music can be in the 21st century.
Review: Mannequin Pussy, ‘Romantic’
Mannequin Pussy knows — and sounds like — the hell that is heartbreak, veering in short bursts between syrupy sweet pop and charred-walls-of-sound punk.
Review: Nina Diaz, ‘The Beat Is Dead’
The new solo album from the Girl In A Coma frontwoman is a fiercely brave, song-by-song journey through her experiences of addiction and recovery.
First Listen: Weyes Blood, ‘Front Row Seat To Earth’
Natalie Mering’s performances are framed in ebbing-and-flowing chamber-folk, set off by psychedelic detours and surreal manipulations of captured sound.
First Listen: John K. Samson, ‘Winter Wheat’
The former Weakerthans singer returns with an album full of gorgeous, vividly detailed songs about characters whose potential doesn’t always lend them a pathway out of their own heads.
Review: Tanya Tagaq, ‘Retribution’
Tagaq, an Inuk throat singer, marries modern pop with deeply-vested tradition to gobsmacking effect. The songs on her new album, Retribution, encompass terror, rage, ecstasy and bone-leeching sadness.
Review: The Radio Dept., ‘Running Out Of Love’
The protest album is alive and well in 2016. Listen to a synth-pop record created to fight the rise of far-right nationalism in Sweden.
Review: American Football, ‘American Football’
Just like that, the emo band returns 17 years after its debut album — a bit older and a bit more introspective, yet still holding on to that teenage feeling.
Review: Swet Shop Boys, ‘Cashmere’
Rappers Heems and Riz MC (the latter an actor known for his starring role in HBO’s The Night Of) address South Asian identity with insight, poignancy and infectious humor.
Review: Muddy Magnolias, ‘Broken People’
Call Muddy Magnolias rock, soul or even country: The huge, soulful, uplifting voices of Jessy Wilson and Kallie North will fill whatever space opens up to them.
Review: Johnnyswim, ‘Georgica Pond’
These are songs by and for feel-big dreamers, performed with a gift for weapons-grade ingratiation by a pair of born crowd-pleasers.
Review: Purling Hiss, ‘High Bias’
If rock music is your salve in hard times, it helps to find something that actually rocks. For its eighth album, Philadelphia’s Purling Hiss returns with an unquestionably huge guitar record.
Review: Helado Negro, ‘Private Energy’
The latest album by musician Roberto Lange mixes his unmistakable keyboard sounds with stripped-down dance beats and lyrics waiting to be assigned a narrative from your own life.
First Listen: Conor Oberst, ‘Ruminations’
Oberst’s distinctive warble is set against a spare patchwork of acoustic guitar, piano and the occasional harmonica, drawing most of the attention to his dark, personal words.
Review: Shovels & Rope, ‘Little Seeds’
Parenthood gives the husband-and-wife Americana duo the will to rock on an album that’s informed by both birth and death.
Review: Phish, ‘Big Boat’
The band’s 13th album feels like a tonal sequel to 2014’s terrific Fuego, thanks to a balanced ear for Phish’s on-stage exuberance and sonic cohesion.
Review: Brent Cobb, ‘Shine On Rainy Day’
On his first full-length album, the young country singer-songwriter imaginatively teases out the subtle textures of small-town life.
Review: John Prine, ‘For Better, Or Worse’
On the cusp of his 70th birthday, the revered singer-songwriter sets down his pen to explore country classics with some stellar duet partners.
Review: Pixies, ‘Head Carrier’
The inspired Head Carrier reaffirms all the spark, wit and weirdness, tempered by the occasional burst of emotional rawness, that made people fall in love with the Pixies in the first place.