Review: Nada Surf, ‘You Know Who You Are’
Almost 25 years into its career, the stalwart power-pop band seems like an inexhaustible force on its eighth album, which smartly juxtaposes the epic and the everyday.
Category: Music
Review: Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, ‘A Man Alive’
On her new album, Thao Nguyen and her band sound emboldened and unafraid to delve into some heavy, nervy stuff.
Review: School Of Seven Bells, ‘SVIIB’
Shadowed by death and encased in digital production, the duo’s fourth and final album is nonetheless warm and beautiful, and by no means mired in gloom.
Review: Yuck, ‘Stranger Things’
The London grunge-pop band may not make the rules, but it knows just how to tweak them for maximum emotional resonance.
First Listen: Mothers, ‘When You Walk A Long Distance You Are Tired’
These songs feel like a snapshot of a time getting left behind rather than lived in, performed by a riveting, honest band.
Review: Santigold, ’99¢’
After a hiatus, the versatile, genre-smashing Santi White returns with a collection of playful, fun songs that reveal more of her personal voice than ever.
Review: Birds Of Chicago, ‘Real Midnight’
J.T. Nero and Allison Russell like to describe the music they make as “secular gospel.” Their new album together is full of nostalgia, farewells and looming finales.
Review: BJ The Chicago Kid, ‘In My Mind’
The Windy City soul man has established himself as a supreme collaborator; his Motown debut features guest spots from Kendrick Lamar and Chance The Rapper.
Review: Africaine 808, ‘Basar’
The Berlin duo’s club music transcends dance-floor stereotypes through extreme juxtapositions, while drawing its power from a TR 808 drum machine and a world of sound.
Review: Prins Thomas, ‘Principe Del Norte’
These nine pieces expand to nearly 100 minutes of “cosmic disco” music, soundtracking a voyage into the deepest spaces of the mind.
First Listen: The Suffers, ‘The Suffers’
The Houston band’s sound is steeped in what it calls “Gulf Coast Soul,” but it also channels ska, Southern hip-hop, classic soul, rock ‘n’ roll and especially reggae.
First Listen: Rokia Traoré, ‘Né So’
The Malian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist returns with a gorgeous album focused on the idea of home.
Review: KING, ‘We Are KING’
The R&B trio, whose 2011 debut EP broke the Internet, finally follows it with an album of dreamy, idiosyncratic, self-produced soul music.
Review: Junior Boys, ‘Big Black Coat’
The long-running duo returns with another set of inventive, era-spanning, synth-driven techno-pop that sets Jeremy Greenspan’s alternately husky and delicate voice against synthetic backgrounds.
Review: Sidestepper, ‘Supernatural Love’
Richard Blair reassembles his innovative Afro-Colombian pop band, and the result never looks back. Instead, it shimmers and percolates while ignoring boundaries altogether.
Review: Lucinda Williams, ‘The Ghosts Of Highway 20’
The singer-songwriter’s new double-length set is a road album of a sort, as well as a remarkable distillation of Williams’ writerly gifts.
Review: Dr. Dog, ‘The Psychedelic Swamp’
The Philly psych-rock band revisits some of its earliest material, now fully fleshed out. Loopy, charming idiosyncrasy abounds.
Review: Elliott Smith, ‘Heaven Adores You’
The soundtrack to a new documentary inventories the periphery of the late singer’s catalog: unheard early recordings, instrumentals, collaborations, live appearances and other illuminating footnotes.
Review: Saul Williams, ‘MartyrLoserKing’
The singer/poet/actor/activist’s newest opus is another slice of genre-agnostic, cultural agitprop inspired by a fictional miner-turned-hacker in the African nation of Burundi.
Review: Benji Hughes, ‘Songs In The Key Of Animals’
A master of commercial jingles, Hughes knows how to stuff his impeccably crafted AM pop songs with humor and heart, pain and delight.