Town And Country
Town And Country Up Above [5/5] An interesting listen beckons when you have to Google about half the instruments listed in a CD’s sleeve notes (karkabas, khaen or guimbri, anybody?). Such is the case with Up Above, Town And Country’s sixth–and best–album. Just in time for the freak-folk movement’s close-up, T&C dignify what some derisively...
Low Skies
Low Skies All The Love I Could Find [3/5] If you’re not careful, Chicago’s Low Skies just might depress the fuck out of you. The band’s second full-length, All The Love I Could Find, is a collection of sad, slow songs about lost love, vagrancy, house fires, drug abuse, dead people, Nebraska and a bunch...
Editors
Editors The Back Room [4/5] On the surface, Editors are the U.K.’s answer to Interpol, a quartet fond of mingling graven vocals with guitar tones that crib equally from Joy Division and early U2. But where NYC’s gloomiest rock band often seem weighed down by their own miserable aura, Editors sound brightest in the depths...
East River Pipe
East River Pipe What Are You On? [5/5] Fifteen years into his “other” career as a one-man band, F.M. Cornog (a.k.a. East River Pipe) is still punching the clock at a New Jersey Home Depot. Not surprisingly, he’s obsessed with drugs throughout his sixth album, from pot (“Druglife”) to meth (“Crystal Queen”) to Prozac (“What...
Destroyer
Destroyer Destroyer’s Rubies [4/5] Dan Bejar has always gone his own way, whether he’s slamming the music industry, employing MIDI technology or attempting to downplay his participation in one of indie rock’s most beloved acts (the New Pornographers). On his seventh full-length as Destroyer, Bejar has once again fashioned his own rules and designed a...
Jason Collett
Jason Collett Idols Of Exile [3/5] Someone really ought to tell Jason Collett that if he’s going to steal, he should at least pick more obscure reference points. The Broken Social Scene guitarist’s second solo album contains riffs from Smashing Pumpkin’s “Disarm” (you can hear everything but the chimes in the opening to “We All...
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Blood
Neko Case Fox Confessor Brings The Flood It’s tempting to think this will be the album that finally breaks sometimes-New Pornographer Neko Case into the middle-aged pop market, a place so dull that Norah Jones is its version of a rock star. But even if that happened, we wouldn’t accuse Case–who, over four previous solo...
Waterdown
Waterdown All Riot [4/5] This six-year-old German sextet are probably less known for their music than for their goofy album titles (e.g., Never Kill The Boy On The First Date) and their diverse touring résumé, which has found them warming stages for bands as stylistically opposed as Blink-182 and Anthrax. Which is too bad, because...
Krisiun
Krisiun AssassiNation [4/5] As tired and clinical as death metal has become since the early-’90s glory days of Morbid Angel, Obituary and Deicide, there are still a handful of second-wave warlords who can transcend the genre’s stultifying gore-bore legacy. Enter Krisiun: Equal parts early Sepultura, Slayer and Deicide, this Brazilian power trio are one of...