What’s coherency anyway? Every time Snaith introduces a new idea, he seems to forget what happened before. So much experimentation here, and while some of it works on its own, it’s my thinking that you’ve gotta pick a thing when you’re making a record.

Are You Gone is the depressing sound of Harmer’s talent aimed at the singular goal of appeasing CBC DJs. I wish she and Paquin hadn’t put so much work into making these instrumentals sound so normal. Makes pretty lame what could be filled with character (and what has been throughout a lot of Harmer’s musical career).

Junior certainly has upside. The jerky instrumentals and thin tones met with breathy vocals and elongated melodies make for a pretty good time. Unfortunately, the record listens in 2D. So many cool guitars and sweet ideas, but too few dynamics, and so, so many repeats.

Bridgers has shown that she is fully capable of making pretty cool music in this project and in projects past. It’s just so frustrating that she does it so infrequently. Most of this record falls back on recycled melodies and soundscapes that become redundant early in the tracklist. It’s not insightful or deep, it’s boring.

Whereas some of her other ventures have hinted to progression, this doesn’t feel like any significant step forward from Stranger in the Alps. ... read more

Unoriginal preteen lazypop. Super bummed that this kind of stuff gets 9s and makes the Polaris Long List.

Would have been sweet if Perfume Genius left the more obvious pop tropes behind, especially regarding a lot of these melodies. They tend to detract so much from the interesting, impressive, and downright cool twists in arrangement, composition and musicality that fill the rest of this thing. Not to trivialize what I'm sure were significant contributions to the instrumental elements from Hadreas himself, but the whole record listens like a dude scatting overdone pop licks to an otherworldly ... read more

A few times on this record, Shauf makes some new sounds. Frankly, I can’t help but wish he would turn some knobs, take some towels off the drums, or otherwise change it up way more often. He did it with Foxwarren, but alas, that is not Andy Shauf. The Shauf Sound(TM) was sweet - even heartbreaking - the first few times, but it’s getting harder to care about it each time it’s repeated and repackaged.

That said, there’s a lot of the story in this that gets to a regular of ... read more

Following a few short months after the band’s massive LP Marriage, The Curve of the Earth is a balancing act in singer-songwriter and a mash of indie and country where song quality is often sacrificed in the pursuit of pared-down experimentation. On the whole, this record can feel like a bit of a drag simply because it’s beautiful, contemplated moments come so infrequently, and the rest is pretty crap filler. It feels incomplete, submitted too early. The Curve of the Earth kinda ... read more

Some pretty fun musical and instrumental ideas (what do I need to do to hire this lead guitarist?), but often gratuitously hectic, which would work if lyrical intelligence was more than just here and there. Feels as if Sports Team is taking more from the English rock canon than it gives.

I think this is what it would feel like to have the Calgary fuck-it’s-cold winter and the Alberta mosquitoes-and-blue-sky summer at the same time.

Indeed, there are moments, but more selective instrumentation and less muddy production could have taken this record in a tasteful direction. Perhaps Other Lives should rethink self-production, as a once-over on the mix (and maybe a piano technician) could have churned out a completely different, much more compelling work. Also, not sure that timpani is really that versatile an instrument?

On the heels of their 2006 EP Widows, Attack in Black's Marriage is a proper showcase of Romano & Co.'s super-sweet blend of punk, indie, and folk - a fantastic marriage indeed. There's a lot that could be said, but at the end of the day this record shows that making music is a great fucking time.

Jim Kilpatrick is profoundly good at discovering depth in the littlest intricacies of mundanity. On Everything, Everything, Shotgun Jimmie is doing very well.

Heavily produced "jams" for whiney fuckboys who think that Imagine Dragons was sent by God.

Musically exciting, intriguing, and rewarding of a close listen. Also exhausting. All said and done, Apple weaves very well, but some of the extra weirdness-for-the-sake-of-it cut and pasted onto the end of some of these songs is exasperating and disappointing.

On color theory, Soccer Mommy's compositions get a tad more complex and an inch more intriguing, but the content continues to lack significant depth or maturity. It's as if Soccer Mommy only pursues musical exploration up until a point - songs cap out at some kind of creativity ceiling, which kinda sucks.

Shallow narrative songwriting about cliched issues makes for weak art, especially when every song drags on while failing to make much of a musical point. This album comes across like one long run-on sentence over-explaining the most mundane mechanics of everyday life.

Fun-guitar-indie-rock meets '00s alt and an emo meets Americana. These are unique marriages that end up pretty dysfunctional on Empty Country, as despite its moments, this record is unfocused on the whole.

Laura Marling tries really hard to sound the way she sounds, and it's lame. Repeatedly throughout the listen, she's almost onto something good, but the interesting ideas disappointingly peter out and this record ends up quite dull.

TOPS has done it again! And so they remain one of the most static bands out there. I feel the same.