i hate the sound of guitars

Every new release I listened to in June:
Jun
Christina Aguilera – Bionic
Amplive – Murder at the Discotech
Archipelago – Have Here
Melissa Auf der Maur – Out of Our Minds
Bomb the Music Industry! – Adults!!!…Smart!!! Shithammered!!! And Excited by Nothing!!!!!!!
The Challenged – Loaded Language
The Cute Lepers – Smart Accessories
The Depreciation Guild – Spirit Youth
Die So Fluid – Mercury
Elk [...]

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Every new release I listened to in May:
May
65daysofstatic – We Were Exploding Anyway
The Alarm – Direct Action
The Alps – Le Voyage
Arctic Monkeys – My Propeller (single)
Avi Buffalo – Avi Buffalo
The Bats – How Pop Can You Get?
Bicycle Voice – Tis the Ghost of Martinellis
Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record
Calories/William – (split single)
Camera Obscura – [...]

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artist of the week: Dio
In my metal days, I followed guitar players from band to band, not singers. It was a plus, for instance, that Graham Bonnet sang with Alcatrazz, coz I knew him from Rainbow and the Michael Schenker Group, but Graham Bonnet wasn’t the reason I bought Alcatrazz albums; the reason (as embarrassing [...]

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song of the week: Pärlor åt svinen
album of the week: a reference of female-fronted punk rock 1977-89
Anybody who’s known me long enough is doubtless tired of my riff about how what jumpstarts the aging process is when you stop falling in love with new music. It’s a little worrisome that I followed up a spin [...]

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Every new release I listened to in April
Apr
Animal Names – Let It Been
Apollo Ghosts – Mount Benson
Best Coast – Something in the Way (single)
Black Francis – Nonstoperotik
Black Tambourine – Black Tambourine
The Blanche Hudson Weekend – The Letters to Daddy (ep)
Brilliant Colors – Never Mine (single)
Roger Bryan & the Orphans – Wolves
Circus Devils – Mother Skinny
De [...]

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artist of the week: Good Luck
song of the week: When You Were Mine
I recently stumbled across Sound as Language, a blog which has a whole lotta overlap with what I like, but writes about quite a few things that are new to me. I liked the way Will wrote about Good Luck like I should [...]

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Artist of the Week: Museum Mouth
Tears in My Beer sounds kinda like a country album title, and maybe not a good one either, but this North Carolina trio’s debut is rambunctious, noisy indie pop. It sounds like not a lot of microphones were involved, and they were all pretty much traumatized. Bassist Savannah Levin takes [...]

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Artist of the Week: Standard Fare
I’ve been sticking with the new weekly format so far, but I’m starting to feel overwhelmed by the stuff slipping through the cracks:

I feel bad, for instance, for not devoting a week to Paula Carino and her excellent new Open on Sunday (at first I thought Ross Bonadonna’s guitar work [...]

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Every new album I listened to in March.
Mar
AFCGT – AFCGT
Aloha – Home Acres
The Art Museums – Rough Frame
David Bazan – Live at Electrical Studio
Boston Spaceships – Camera Found the Ray Gun (ep)
Broken Bells – Broken Bells
Cast of Coraline – Original Off Broadway Cast Recording
Clogs – The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton
Cotton Candy – [...]

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Artist of the Week: Love is All
It took me a while to warm to Love Is All. The coalescing of three members from the (underwhelming, to me at least) twee band Girlfrendo into the textbook post-punk act Love Is All made me suspicious of bandwagon-jumping, since it happened when retro post-punk was suddenly very marketable. [...]

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