i hate the sound of guitars

La Sera is helmed by Vivian Girls bassist/vocalist Katy Goodman, which both is and isn’t relevant — on one hand both acts share a solid pop foundation and a distinctly retro quality to the writing (I had to check the credits to be sure none of these songs weren’t obscure 50’s/60’s chestnuts). But on the [...]

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I love this band so much, and here are four more reasons why. The first two songs (”What Drummers Get” and “Twin Sisterzz”) operate in JF’s primary mode: high energy, with yelpy vocals, song sections colliding into each other like bumper cars, with surprisingly compelling hooks (and sometimes quiet, pretty bits, too, lurking amid the [...]

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Somewhere between roots-rock and power pop, with some swell vocal harmonies. Veteran producer Ed Valausksas stitches it all together nicely. If I were in a quibbling mood I’d say some of these songs are stretched out a tiny bit more than might be optimal, but the under-two-minute “Braedon” certainly isn’t; it’s my fave. Other highlights [...]

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Let’s just deal with it head-on: Ted Billings, front man for Age Rings, sings more than a little bit like Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. Age Rings is decidedly a rock band, but one that incorporates a lot of different moods and textures, often with prominent keyboards, bringing in horns and even winds now and then. “Rock [...]

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One disadvantage of my “quick take” approach to album reviews is that sometimes my response to a record changes significantly over time. Fortunately on the internets I can amend earlier commentary when I think it’s necessary.
I’ve been feeling bad about my initial response to Mars Classroom’s The New Theory of Everything almost since I posted [...]

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“The Crassical Collection” is currently my favorite first-wave punk-band remaster series. Not only do the albums all come with gobs of bonus material, facsimile of the original art, and booklets jammed with essays, lyrics, art, and photos, but the new slip cases will join up to make a giant acid-washed Crass logo when my collection [...]

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The confusingly named L’essentiel is split into two halves: “Champ” (field) is 14 tracks culled (and remastered) from Holden’s previous releases; “Hors-Champ” (off-screen) is another 14 previously unreleased tracks. I suspect some, like a cover of The Smiths’ “The Boy With the Thorn In His Side,” were left off earlier albums because they simply didn’t [...]

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Preludes makes me think of Metric, not because I Was Totally Destroying It sound like Metric — they mostly don’t, although “Fight/Flight” does a bit — but because Preludes feels like the kind of leap that Metric made between Grow Up And Blow Away and Fantasies: the elements are the same, but everything is in [...]

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Usually a garage/psychedelic record, even one as well executed as this, wouldn’t make big claims on my listening time. This does, for two reasons. First, it’s got an enough indie rock flavor to hold my interest (Coni Duchess sounds enough like Kim Gordon, ’specially on lines like “I wanna kiss the future,” (”Under the Woods”) [...]

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Wow, this is good. The arrangements are thoroughly sympathetic; a few crunchy rock moments à la that dog or her previous solo album, alongside more sedate piano- and string-driven numbers. Production is rich and satisfying with some lovely details, the pick slide in “I Don’t Wanna” being a favorite of mine. The pacing of the [...]

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