Stuart Berman
The Irish post-punk band’s most demanding and musically adventurous album is also its most open-hearted, striking a perfect balance between tough and tender.
4y
After a prolific period of experimentation, Animal Collective return with an album that achieves a peaceful equilibrium between their immersive 3D soundscaping and innate melodic charms.
4y
Exploring personal subject matter and wider musical terrain, the Bristol band’s fourth album plays like the dark origin story for how Idles became the preeminent life coaches of modern post-punk.
4y
For many once-unruly rock’n’roll bands, the shift to writing love songs is a tell-tale sign of maturation (if not outright stagnation), but even at its most sophisticated, Seek Shelter retains Iceage’s restless spirit.
5y
L.W. resembles K.G. after three additional months of lockdown: It’s more antsy, more angry, and less concerned about letting its gut hang out
5y
K.G., in particular, has a natural fluidity that belies its piecemeal construction, and a steady rhythmic thrust that mirrors the urgency of its scorched-Earth lyrics.
5y
Alongside a roster of guest vocalists including Jennifer Castle and Meg Remy, the psychedelic Toronto outfit allows their exploratory and pop-focused impulses to work in tandem.
5y
On his fifth Tobacco album, Thomas Fec doubles down on both the most alluring and unsettling aspects of the project.
5y
The new album from multi-instrumentalist Jay Watson (Tame Impala, POND) is his most ambitious to date, imbuing his mad-scientist home-recording project with some fleeting glimpses into his life beyond the console.
5y
The Afghan Whigs leader's debut solo album balances guitar-slashing catharsis with candelabra-lit elegance, taking inspired tangents from his signature nocturnal sensibility without departing from it entirely.
6y
Max Turnbull’s newest group takes its name from a song co-written by Eric Clapton and George Harrison—then stretches it from a three-minute pop song into a 14-minute improvisatory mission statement.
6y
On her alluring and unnerving new album, the Melbourne singer-songwriter adopts a digital alter-ego to explore real-life human strife.
6y
On their first new album in four years, the Irish punk quartet channel pure, visceral panic through screeching sensory assaults and scrap-metal clang.
6y
As heavy as the album is, it feels slight in the context of the band’s catalog, lacking both the unpredictable detours of their biggest rock-outs and the insidious melodies of their more pop-focused work.
6y
L.A.-based auteur Michael Collins crafts a pristine portrait of early-’70s AM radio by taking inspiration not only from the period’s definitive artists, but its discarded pop detritus, too.
7y
The steely Dublin post-punk band infuse the bitterness and rage of the Fall with punch-drunk romanticism.
7y
With easy hooks, surprise structural twists, and a gift for non-sequiturs, the Canadian quartet’s debut is a vivid portrait of the big-city struggle. Pavement’s influence is impossible to ignore.
6y
Yak match raucous, restless energy with uncommon gravitas, making this the rare garage rock-informed record that aims for the upper reaches of Royal Albert Hall.
7y
Pledging allegiance to fuzz, this power-pop barrage squares off against heartache, disappointment, and sleepless nights—and survives.
7y
Linnea Siggelkow downsized her city of choice, a move that inspired her to confront confusion and ambivalence in six dream-pop gems that carve out a welcome space of security.
7y
With Elastic Days, he’s arrived at the sort of refined folk-rock that the ’90s iteration of Dinosaur Jr. probably would’ve made had it continued veering toward the middle of the road.
7y
With Tru, Hartlett soundly reasserts Ovlov’s signature strength: the band’s ability to fortify tender songs with muscular squall in a way that doesn’t obscure their emotional intent, but amplifies it.
7y
For all its sorrowful subject matter, Death Lust is an often rousing rock record that answers Williams’ disarming admissions with muscular displays of fortitude.
7y
The dyed-in-the-wool psych-rock band returns with some of their most accessible songs to date, full of fuzz-pedal jams that capture moments of fleeting happiness in dark days.
8y
The latest from Tame Impala and Pond’s Jay Watson smooths out the pastiche psych-rock and dials down the eccentricity to create a more seamless song cycle.
8y