Bird Show
Bird Show Lightning Ghost [5/5] Town And Country multi-instrumentalist Ben Vida (a.k.a. Bird Show) wants you to get your bliss on. Lightning Ghost, the follow-up to Bird Show’s masterly mystical-drone debut, 2005’s Green Inferno, bears listeners aloft on sonic Cloud Nines over freak folk’s verdant hills and dales. Where subgenre figurehead Devendra Banhart strives to...
Voodoo Blue
Voodoo Blue Smile And Nod [4/5] They may have toyed with different styles over the years, but on their debut album, Baltimore trio VooDoo Blue roll out arena-worthy pop-punk with a tooth-decaying sense of style. And, even though Smile And Nod’s coffin-tight melodies and harmonies sound a little too studio-perfect, it’s easy to picture crowds...
SoTheySay
SoTheySay Antidote For Irony [4/5] When musicians completely reveal themselves on an album, it’s hard not to get into it. And on the long-playing follow-up to their self-titled 2005 EP, SoTheySay seem to be doing a serious interpretation of the title Antidote For Irony, tackling deeply personal issues that go well beyond the typical fare...
No Trigger
No Trigger Canyoneer [4/5] Cheers to any all-male punk/hardcore band with the guts to write a song about the scene’s oft-forgotten women. Ah, but the fact that No Trigger are tackling the great imbalance of the sexes on “More To Offer” isn’t the only reason this female writer is loving their debut album. Rather, it’s...
Love Equals Death
Love Equals Death Nightmerica [3/5] Just look at the America-as-wasteland/zombie-girl artwork of Love Equals Death’s Nightmerica (or simply note the band name and album title), and you may know what sort of music to expect. Yes, Nightmerica is a dark, dead-serious debut album from this pack of Bay Area punk diehards (including ex-Tsunami Bomb bassist...
Far-Less
Far-Less Everyone Is Out To Get Us [4/5] Exploring paranoia, aliens and conspiracy theories while simultaneously embracing pop culture and thumbing his nose at scenesters, Far-Less singer/lyricist Brandon Welch has an obvious disregard for the ordinary; and, musically speaking, his bandmates follow suit on their sophomore album. Renewing the post-screamo sound of their 2004 EP...
Das Kapital
Das Kapital Denying The West [4/5] Since American Idiot opened the floodgates for a revival of the 1970s’ second-most-abominable legacy–the concept album–it’s natural to be suspicious of a punk-rock saga set in the early part of the last century, starring a runaway Mormon in thrall to Bolshevism. Remarkably, Das Kapital’s debut album seems to have...
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Show Your Bones [4/5] Just as a big hit should, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ omnipresent 2003 single “Maps” made singer Karen O far more famous than any of her New York City rock peers, but it also suggested that the second Yeah Yeah Yeahs album would probably sound nothing like their debut. And...
Theo And The Skyscrapers
Theo And The Skyscrapers Theo And The Skyscrapers [3/5] Last we heard from former lead Lunachick Theo Kogan, she was ordering murders like cheap takeout as the voice of Chuck Manson’s girlfriend–er, the doll version anyway–in Live Freaky! Die Freaky! Fleshed out again, and fiery as ever, Theo shows there’s no denying her return to...