Squarepusher
Squarepusher Hello Everything [2/5] Tom Jenkinson has a pretty good track record in electronic music. He’s always managed to stay ahead of the game in a genre that’s always changing with the latest technology. However, on Hello Everything it seems he’s hit a creative roadblock. His 10th release is a mellow effort that often sounds...
The Killers
The Killers Sam’s Town [2/5] Admit it, you loved the first Killers record. When “Mr. Brightside” came on the radio during your commute home from work, you sang its over-the-top chorus into an air mic and banged out its synth line on the dash. Back then the Killers had no qualms about playing the kind...
Melvins
Melvins (A) Senile Animal [5/5] While their 20-year catalog has countless streaks of greatness, Melvins haven’t made a truly, consistently, unflinchingly fucking amazing album since 1991’s Bullhead. Instead, cluttered with screwball concepts and hit-or-miss audio experiments, the band’s post-’91 output has rejected the ferocious proto-grunge tunnel vision that defined everything before it. Thankfully, with the...
The Walkmen
The Walkmen Pussy Cats [5/5] In 1974, a brilliant yet eccentric songwriter (Harry Nilsson) and the creative catalyst behind a critically and commercially successful juggernaut (John Lennon) went on a several-month bender and recorded the results. The modern equivalent would be Conor Oberst and Thom Yorke capping a raucous road trip by staggering tipsily into...
Samiam
Samiam Whatever’s Got You Down [4/5] By the mid-’90s, Kurt Cobain was dead, Blake Schwarzenbach was god and the Bay Area-based, not-quite-hardcore band Samiam had officially come into their creative own after releasing the now-classic Clumsy album in ’94. Since then, the band have dabbled in everything from noisy pop-punk (1998’s You Are Freaking Me...
Killswitch Engage
Killswitch Engage As Daylight Dies [3/5] True Killswitch Engage devotees openly admit that the most promising thing the band have done in the last year is release a cover of Dio’s “Holy Diver.” Spending so much time on the frontier of metalcore while also reaping the benefits of true metal’s resurgence can wear on you...
Robert Pollard
Robert Pollard Normal Happiness [4/5] Well, apparently, bailing on Guided By Voices hasn’t made him any less prolific; this is Robert Pollard’s second solo album of the year. And while the other one (From A Compound Eye) was twice as long, there’s certainly no sign of Pollard running low on steam. Much of Normal Happiness...
Oxford Collapse
Oxford Collapse Remember The Night Parties [5/5] While a glut of 20-something puntal bands (that’s punk-metal for those of you keeping score at home) currently developing crushes on Iron Maiden and Guns N’ Roses, it isn’t surprising that a trio of NYU grads are mining the stuttering rumblings of the late-’80s/early-’90s art-rock scene, as exemplified...
Make Believe
Make Believe Of Course [4/5] When your band is fronted by as charismatic, confounding and cerebral a figure as Make Believe’s Tim Kinsella, it’s hard to push your music outside of that dude’s shadow. And when your second album is inspired by equally extra-musical matters-as is Of Course by the 2005 arrest of drummer/Tim’s cousin...