Berated

After the release of their most recent album Departing this year, Ben takes a look back at their memorable debut, Hometowns. After lukewarm acclaim for Departing, he looks at Hometowns for clues about where the Advantage could and should be going. At the very least, it is certainly an album worth revisiting.

Billowing clouds of smoke, a neon-lit cast of tie-dye colors, and various voodoo references help define The Great Society Mind Destroyers. Chaos is an all-encompassing description once the opening track on the Chicago-based quartet’s new album, Spirit Smoke, gets underway. “Temple Lurker” sounds nearly half-ironic in its title; its whirlwind of heavily distorted psych-rock is [...]

The best way to get a feel for a band is to hear them live. It’s a great way to start a review, too; the presentation is a vivid description of the group’s power onstage, a retelling of the moment you realized that driving all the way out to see the show was worth it. [...]

With Build a Rocket Boys!, Elbow have not returned with more arena-filling choruses, beautiful as they were. Instead, their fifth full-length boasts a sparser sound and a lament on lost youth. Garvey’s lyrics have always been worth scratching on a classroom desk, and Build a Rocket Boys! maintains this tradition.

Jake and Jamin Orrall specialize in fuzzy West Coast rock that plays best in a party atmosphere (or on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2). There is a vintage feel to the brothers’ guitar-and-drums lineup, forcing an emphasis on quality songwriting and stage presence; superfluous bells and whistles are not present to mask the occasional misstep. [...]

This site aims to emphasize newer releases, many of which have not been released yet. Several times though, I feel an artist is so criminally under-exposed and relevant to today’s scene that a feature just begs to come out. One of 2010′s most talked-about albums was Twin Shadow’s Forget, a wonderful hybrid of post-punk and [...]

It’s simply not often we’re given an album that wades through the ether of the unknown and uninhibited. This is why when Collin Stetson puts his lips to the reed; he proves that in the midst of gimmicky musical tricks and impersonations, the belief that there is no uncharted territory in music is a load of bullshit.

Junior Boys announced just a few minutes ago that they will be releasing their new full-length, It’s All True, on June 13th. Their fourth on Domino Records, it will feature the nine tracks below. They also released an MP3 of the eighth track from the new album via Domino’s site. “ep” is a crisp gem [...]

Now 21 years old, David Pollack’s music continues to evolve. Often an age like this marks the beginning of an aspiring music career, but this NYC-based singer/songwriter has been at it for years already. I featured Pollack nearly four years ago when he was 18 and fronting a band called Play. Even at that point, [...]

Best of Gloucester County is an enjoyable and pleasant album, but its depth is limited. The moments of spiritual brevity are generally ephemeral, resulting in an album that sounds important but isn't necessarily so. It's akin to one rolling and amassing suite that never delivers infatuating melodies or emotional catharsis [...]