As is my main qualm with most of Fleet Foxes' catalogue, Shore lacks musical honesty. There is little variability in tone, presence, feel, or performance. I think that part of this feeling comes from their piling so heavily onto mid and low-mid instrumentals. On top of that, their production is often so compressed that changes in dynamic, especially upwards, fail to land.

Their stuff lacks a degree of musicality that dampens it's effect, especially at LP length. Ultimately, each track becomes ... read more

Big Blue seamlessly traverses grunge attitude, garage honesty, shoegaze tonality, and beyond. It's a blend that's intimate and massive and rewarding with every listen. Dead Soft is awesome.

A properly depressing listen. Also, as has been the case with The Flaming Lips' best work, the psyched out musicality on American Head is uniquely enthralling in the best of ways.

On Keep It Like a Secret, Built to Spill accomplishes what so many can only get half-right. At the same time that there is a complex plethora to seek out and digest, there's an innate simplicity to these songs. It's one of the great indie records of it's period, and perhaps even to date. Crack a beer. Have a listen. Crack another beer.

Ugh.

Sure, there are "grooves," but those pockets are almost completely static and songs just stagnate in them (not to mention how clearly their stylings are ripped off from Andy Shauf). And yes, there are "moments," especially where the guitars rise up to bring at least a bit of much-desired intrigue, but they are more often than not unsupported by the rhythmic and vocal elements, leaving those "moments" rather weak in the end. And of course, there's sensitivity, ... read more

nêhiyawak is a unique project. nipiy is a unique record. These are not often things I have thought while listening to this year's Polaris selections.

Overall, the musical textures and moods carry the lyrical messages quite well. Throughout the record, there's a really solid use of dark, washed out, chaotic guitars/synths/noise that it'd be good to see nêhiyawak lean harder into. A lot of these woody percussive flairs are pretty sweet too, and they're more or less seamless ... read more

This record swings from flatly lame to potentially entertaining, but the overblown receipt from the industry doesn't surprise me given the easily digestible, surface-level political messaging. Devoting a whole record to finding different ways to parrot popular, simplistic narratives that boil down to "with us or against us" is hardly intelligent, but it's unquestionably far from groundbreaking.

Hop Along cleans up a bit, but maintains their exceptional songwriting and patented emotional rawness set to an intricate musical backdrop. They also easily retain their Coolest Guitars status in this realm of music. A really, really, really good band. Repeat listens reward every time.

Often point-blank, and quite forceful because of it. Spot on at lot of the time too.

The tracklist does hop around musically, leaving it slightly disjointed. It doesn't sound bad at all - I just think that a tad more focus on drawing thicker musical lines through the next one would take Crack Cloud to the next rung. You get the sense that it's only up from here. They just seem too creative to stagnate.

That said, the late-70s/early-80s punk revival is pretty sweet. For a while, I've wanted to ... read more

A real good time, not a moment wasted, and not an inch too much of anything. Really well done, classic punk served up for the modern indie era, with hints of rockabilly and alt-country. Producers should look to this as a benchmark for modernizing old-school sound, and musicians should look at this as a cue to just fucking play.

Fontaines D.C.'s number two embraces a slightly darker and significantly more sensitive tone. The stuff earlier on is pretty sweet, but the record's sensitive and "positive" moments that follow range from sigh-worthy to cringe-worthy. The chaos is dialed way back on A Hero's Death, which is definitely the wrong way to be dialing the chaos.

Very sweet.

While this first swing at the LP game is tonally inconsistent and lacking in conceptual aim, Haley Blais is undeniably a force. If she sticks to writing music that focuses on and supports her vocal strength (and picks better instrumental tones), it's easily up from here. Looking forward to the next one.

Oberst sounds a lot better when his band strays from the grid. While there are a a couple better tracks later on, Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was feels try-hardy and lacks the unique, organic awkwardness of Bright Eyes' earlier catalogue. Make the next one in a garage.

Willing or not, Loveless pulls you deeper and holds you stronger the longer it goes on. A stunning balance between meticulous composition and "fuck it, why not" character. Shoegaze at its absolute best - relentlessly sunny and abysmal. An inescapably phenomenal record.

There are two things that Nowhere proves. Firstly, the electric guitar is by far the coolest instrument. And secondly, it's completely reasonable to play the drums both bombastically and politely. A great time.

A note: The US expanded version could have benefitted from less of an expansion, rather than the 2001 re-expansion. Not to say that the additions to the tracklist aren't also a great time, but the force and mastery of the original 8 tracks are lost in a record that's now nearly double ... read more

A lot of Des feux pour voir is a unique but effortless blend of folk, jazz, pop, and electro. And while the record has its share of less inspired moments, it's fortunate that Marie-Pierre Arthur appears to possess the amount of crazy that makes for undeniably creative works. Always good to hear something so naturally occurring.

Very much a grown up, slightly-greying-but-still-spry continuation of Samson's work with The Weakerthans. On Provincial, John K. Samson delivers the feeling of a vast nation as he has always so effortlessly and poignantly done, but this time with a more pensive and deft touch. It's purely Canadian music from one of the most purely Canadian creators out there.

The Monitor is intelligent, instinctual, and relentless. An impassioned punk rock opera from the viewpoint of a cancelled, wrecked individual, celebrating and mourning a world that could have been and should be.

An hour and 11 minutes is a very long time to make someone listen to the same four bars on repeat.

Men I Trust are deep in the caverns of the genre I like to call Girls Who Sing Like Ghosts. While the lounge-jazz/pop stylings can be a compliment to the ghostishness, there is an almost complete lack of movement within each song and throughout the record. Unfortunately, that seems to be one of the hazards of the genre, and Men I Trust fail entirely to evade or outgrow it on Oncle Jazz.