A faultless, dreamy, beautifully sleazy album by Destroyer, aka Dan Bejar. It was released in 2011, right before the dawn of millennial indie sleaze, which means that it bears just enough impressionistic relation to be the times as Passion Pit and MGMT. But once you zoom in, the relation dims more and more,, divorced from any world inhabited by the characters in Lena Dunham’s Girls or the Obama era. It eludes any climax, and keeps circling around in a drug-infused haze around something ... read more
AOTY! Not perfect, but damn well near. She's gifted with narrative in the same way that other singer-songwriters like Joanna Newsom or Bobbie Gentry are, and unlike Joanna Newsom and much like early Bobbie Gentry, she's more than adept at making these deceptively simple additive earworms that have a lot of technical ability and talent underneath. I feel like I could talk forever about what is it about her writing I find compelling.
Frances, you have my heart. There's no one like you. It's a shame their best song - Second Name - isn't on here.
Fun and whimsical ambient. Think Mid-Air Thief, but songs like 4u really sets them apart and scratches a different itch. A friend once described These Chains by MAT as the aural equivalent of taking a sip of fresh water - it just has that squiggly clean commercial, accessible sound. This is a bit more industrial.
This is as close as it gets to a perfect album for me. I think about it often. It slips and retracts in my mind, alll at once in short hazes: the way her voice wails on the Man Who Sends me Home, or how it goes into a hush in Captain for Dark Mornings, or the climax in Gibsom Street, or that frantic bit in Tom Cat Goodby. You know what I'm talking about, because it will remind you of Prokofiev, modernity, Miles Davis, Sonny Sharrock, the history of Western music, New York, cities ... read more
“Coffee in the morning, and wine in the evening. Everything else is boring, boring.” Again, Lisa Germano reminds us why she should’ve been one of the bigger singer-songwriters of the 90s.
The aural equivalent of a surreal daytime nightmare set in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Too bad it isn’t dense enough.
On Dark Horses is not an unrelenting album. It's certainly not like May Our Chambers Be Full—ERR's collaborative effort with Thou—which is disciplined in its relentlessness. Instead, it knows when to push and pull, when to charge and when to double back.
It leaves room for breath, even though the album’s opening song doesn’t. Transcendent, with ERR’s signature dreamy guitar textures, Fever Dreams takes off with soaring vocals: "A life spent uneasy, in ... read more
Relentless, disciplined, and cathartic. Doesn't stop when you expect or want it to stop, and that's what makes it great.
1
Create an account to rate and review albums.
Recent Review Comments
On 4sofiegrace's review of Hudson Freeman - Is a Folk Artist
"It's crazy. Came across it by accident and one of 2025's best."
On Doofy's review of Black Country, New Road - Forever Howlong
"33 </3. The band are very much influenced by Joanna Newsom and May Kershaw once said that it is her bread and butter. Imo this feels like a hollow imitations of Joanna, like trying to capture the rough outlines or the peaks without really going down into the valley. Joanna is widely influenced by English folk (like Sandy Denny) and it would've be been nice to hear elements of that in their music."
On Doofy's review of Ida - Tales of Brave Ida
"Like you said, indie schmindie, but endlessly charming. They've been active recently on their Instagram and posted some unreleased music that sounded like a precursor to the Disintegration Tapes! Seems like a lot of indie artists, back in the day, were interested in communicating that feeling of dissolution through the recording process. It's great to see reviews here of their work."
On Doofy's review of Arab Strap - I'm totally fine with it 👍 don't give a fuck anymore 👍
"Great review. I'm curious to what other lockdown albums you've enjoyed though...Spirit of the Beehive has a great one that was released in 2021 I think."
Advertisement