First Listen: Beach Slang, ‘A Loud Bash Of Teenage Feelings’
On its new album, the Philly rock band rattles the rafters with grace, power and concision. These are songs by and for the alienated, out-of-place, searching and otherwise disconnected.
Category: Music Reviews
First Listen: Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam, ‘I Had A Dream That You Were Mine’
The former Walkmen frontman records an album with the help of Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij. Throughout, the two surround the singer’s voice with surprising, sometimes old-fashioned sounds.
First Listen: Dwight Yoakam, ‘Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars…’
On the 30th anniversary of his debut, the country star releases his first-ever bluegrass album — though this isn’t quite the simple, back-to-roots affair the concept suggests.
First Listen: Kishi Bashi, ‘Sonderlust’
Throughout his third solo album, K. Ishibashi broadens his palette, rendering his sound ever more frantic, unpredictable, digital and danceable.
First Listen: Against Me!, ‘Shape Shift With Me’
On the band’s follow-up to Transgender Dysphoria Blues, the personal and political dovetail into an inseparable tangle of anxieties and fuel for protest.
First Listen: Dawes, ‘We’re All Gonna Die’
Through travelogues, story-songs and a literary quality that’s been honed to a cutting edge, Taylor Goldsmith and his band have crafted their most ambitious record to date.
Review: Cymbals Eat Guitars, ‘Pretty Years’
Catharsis comes heavy and often in the Staten Island band’s raucous-yet-refined rock sound, which reflects a new generation’s willingness to look back on the ’80s and ’90s with fresh eyes and ears.
Review: Pretty Yende, ‘A Journey’
Follow the young South African soprano’s fairytale rise to fame in a travelogue of classic arias and scenes by Rossini, Delibes and Bellini.
First Listen: St. Paul & The Broken Bones, ‘Sea Of Noise’
Sea Of Noise lifts this Alabama eight-piece from its spot as the nation’s best young party band into headier and more exciting territory, where insights matter more than mere imitation.
First Listen: Adam Torres, ‘Pearls To Swine’
After a long layoff, the Austin musician returns with a collection of intimate, personal songs, recorded with hometown musicians Thor Harris, Aisha Burns and others.
First Listen: Teenage Fanclub, ‘Here’
Poignant and bittersweet, the Scottish pop band’s 10th album captures the way things slip away — and are clutched tighter as a result.
First Listen: Daniel Lanois, ‘Goodbye To Language’
On his new solo album, the producer and multi-instrumentalist offers haunting instrumental meditations on the nature of present and future communication.
Review: Okkervil River, ‘Away’
Away is a rebuilding-yourself-from-the-ground-up kind of record, and singer-songwriter Will Sheff uses the occasion to take his time and let his songs breathe.
Review: Gaby Moreno, ‘Ilusión’
The boundary-smashing singer returns with a “Spanglish folk-soul” album about love, violence against women, and the immigrant experience.
Review: The Frightnrs, ‘Nothing More To Say’
Singer Dan Klein died of ALS earlier this summer, but at least his rocksteady band was able to see its collective vision through on this one sublime album.
Review: Eluvium, ‘False Readings On’
On its new album, Matthew Cooper’s ambient-music project suggests that noise and beauty are interdependent, making room for celestial voices and jet-engine roars alike.
Review: Y La Bamba, ‘Ojos Del Sol’
On the band’s new album, Luz Elena Mendoza’s voice is fully enmeshed in the arrangements, which gives her bicultural storytelling an almost otherworldly feel.
Review: James Vincent McMorrow, ‘We Move’
A dewy Irishman with a falsetto-flecked voice, McMorrow gives himself an impressive makeover on a stylistically adventurous new album.
Simple Idea, Spooky Result: Latin American Ballads Get A Ghostly Makeover
Frankie Reyes is a Los Angeles-based artist who remakes classic Mexican and other Spanish-language ballads and waltzes using a vintage synthesizer. His new album is called Boleros Valses y Mas.
Review: Bob Dylan, ‘Fallen Angels’
This is the second volume in which Dylan sings the Great American Songbook, recorded at the same time (and with the same core band) as his 2015 album Shadows In The Night.