October 4, 2006

Say Hi To Your Mom Impeccable Blahs [3/5] Between the silly MILF-toast moniker and smarmy self-proclamations on their website (how the band “simultaneously defies and enforces physics”), Say Hi To Your Mom don’t exactly put their best foot forward. Fortunately, the group’s self-released fourth disc, Impeccable Blahs, lacks such pretense. Minimalist droning synth pop best...

Panda & Angel Panda & Angel EP [3/5] Panda & Angel are probably sick of fans and critics describing their sound as “melancholy,” but if the shoe fits… Unsurprisingly, they seem comfortable in slow-burning, restrained songs (“Mexico,” “China,” “Following The Death Of Her”), but the band work best when they show force. “Dangerous” sports a...

Midlake The Trials of Van Occupanther [5/5] As My Morning Jacket proved on a grand scale, indie rockers no longer need to be ashamed about claiming ’70s rock dinosaurs as influences. Denton, Texas, quintet Midlake go one step further, practically replicating the warm glow of that era’s FM radio on their bewitching sophomore effort. Pastoral...

The Long Winters Putting The Days To Bed [3/5] Like John Vanderslice and Colin Meloy, John Roderick is a verbose wordsmith who writes indie-rock songs in the hopes of being timeless instead of hip. The latter means that he’ll probably get all the recognition he deserves a few years after his death, while the former...

The Late Cord Lights From The Wheelhouse [3/5] If the Overlook Hotel from the movie The Shining had Muzak, it would most likely be this hauntingly opaque collaboration between singer/songwriter Micah P. Hinson and John-Mark Lapham, the multi-instrumentalist of the Earlies. The first fruits of their union are somewhat of a mixed bag: The romantic...

French Kicks Two Thousand [4/5] Though they’ve been around for eight years, Brooklyn’s French Kicks always manage to seem young, playing their tender post-punk that’s so pristine, it sounds fresh-scrubbed (if not exactly virginal) on every new effort. Better still, they’ve also eliminated their missteps as they age. On Two Thousand, that means avoiding the...

Thom Yorke The Eraser [3/5] Radiohead worshipers will feast on frontman Thom Yorke’s solo bow while the ’head plot their next move, namely because The Eraser sounds like a proper Radiohead release. In fact, it’s so similar to Kid A, you’d automatically assume the songs were outtakes from that album’s sessions. Yorke’s so-pretty-it-hurts solo album...

Butch Walker And The Let’s Go Out Tonites The Rise And Fall Of Butch Walker And The Let’s Go Out Tonites [3/5] It’s becoming quite clear that if Butch Walker could build a time machine and beam himself back to the ’70s, he’d be the happiest musician alive. After channeling his inner Cheap Trick with...

Vaux Beyond Virtue, Beyond Vice [5/5] The first time AP reviewed Beyond Virtue, Beyond Vice, we told you it wasn’t the sound of one of post-hardcore’s most adventurous acts selling out but rather, moving forward. A year after the album first surfaced, and in hindsight-well, we were right. Virtue finds Vaux emerging as a force...