Nick Thorburn can’t seem to catch a break. Although he gained a great deal of popularity with indie pop group the Unicorns, they released all of one studio album (Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?) in 2003 before splitting. Despite a litany of musical projects since this time, including five releases as […]
Review: Islands – Should I Remain Here At Sea?/Taste Read More »
If you’ve paid attention to rock music at all in the past twenty years, you know that Radiohead are a pretty big deal. They’re one of the few alternative bands from the 90s that’s managed to stay relevant after 24 years, they almost constantly receive critical acclaim, and they can sell out an arena in
Review: Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool Read More »
Parquet Courts have been nothing if not prolific these past few years. After releasing their debut American Specialties in 2011, they released the acclaimed Light Up Gold in 2012 and the EP Tally All The Things You Broke in 2013. In 2014 they again earned critical acclaim with Sunbathing Animal, only for the band’s guitarists
Review: Parquet Courts – Human Performance Read More »
For the uninitiated, the Last Shadow Puppets are a side project of Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner and former Rascals frontman Miles Kane. If you haven’t heard their name recently or even at all, that’s understandable given their last release The Age of the Understatement came out eight years ago. This album was also
Review: The Last Shadow Puppets – Everything You’ve Come To Expect Read More »
There are some bands out there that elicit a uniform response of “this is good, but all their albums sound the same.” Yeasayer is not one of those bands. Their 2007 debut All Hour Cymbals combined psychedelic sounds, assorted chanting, and Middle Eastern musical influences to make one of the more unique releases in
Review: Yeasayer – Amen & Goodbye Read More »
As indie rock has grown to incorporate elements of electronica and pop, it seems like it has done so at the expense of gimmick-free guitar-based rock groups. A band that only has bass, drums and guitar that does not try to incorporate any particular genre or subgenre into its sound really has to make
Review: The Joy Formidable – Hitch Read More »
Miike Snow occupy an interesting space in electronic music. For many, electronic music has become synonymous with dance music to the point that genres like techno, house, and dubsteb are all under the umbrella genre “electronic dance music” better known as “EDM.” Yet it would seem inaccurate to call Miike Snow a dance group. Their
Review: Miike Snow – iii Read More »
Listening to Animal Collective is a lot like visiting a modern art gallery. Some visitors may rave about everything they see, calling even the most abstract works “genius.” Others may be less impressed by what they see, not understanding how anyone could find them brilliant (especially without being on drugs) or perhaps just saying “…I
Review: Animal Collective – Painting With Read More »
Looking at the landscape of indie music today, and everything the loosely-defined term now encompasses, it can be easy to feel nostalgia for the relatively straightforward indie rock of a decade ago. The mid-2000s gave us an abundance of indie rock bands from both sides of the Atlantic, with garage rock revival acts like The
Review: Bloc Party – Hymns Read More »
2015 was an all-around amazing year for music. There were some astounding debuts, great surprises by bands that hadn’t been heard from in years, and high-quality albums by artists that have yet to let us down. There were also a number of good-but-not great albums by indie heavyweights (The Decemberists, Belle and Sebastian, Modest Mouse)
Top Albums of 2015 Read More »
Indie music fans had a lot to be thankful for in 2015, with some amazing albums released this year. This is not the list for those albums. Instead, this list is for great songs that were on otherwise good-but-not great albums from 2015. Modest Mouse – The Ground Walks, With Time In A Box
The Top 10 Songs of 2015 (That Aren’t from the Top 10 Albums) Read More »
From the mild Coldplay to the stadium-filling Muse to the ever-changing Beck, it seems like music labeled “alternative” is everywhere. “Alternative” is usually known to be short for “alternative rock,” but there’s also alternative country (frequently abbreviated “alt-country”), alternative hip-hop, and alternative metal. In these latter cases one, can deduce that “alternative” means “different from
Better Know A Genre: Alternative Read More »
You must be logged in to post a comment.