The Snake The Cross The Crown
The Snake The Cross The Crown Cotton Teeth [4/5] It’s been nearly three years since the Snake The Cross The Crown released their full-length debut, Mander Sails, which was filled with weary, lachrymose acoustic guitars and quavering elocution-a trademark for the Alabama gents. Retaining those two signature elements and adding oft-melancholy emanation, the band’s second...
The Sea And Cake
The Sea And Cake Everybody Else [4/5] The album cover for Everybody, the thrilling new offering by indie supergroup the Sea And Cake, shows jagged and asymmetrical tiles forming smooth flooring. And like those tiles, the intersecting guitars of Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt, paired with the narcotic dream of a rhythm section in bassist...
Page France
Page France …And The Family Telephone [4/5] Page France’s Michael Nau is a rare indie-pop artist for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being that he regularly sounds happy. Not overwrought. Or helpless. Just content. Nau’s reedy voice and acute storytelling instincts lend themselves favorably to mentions of Jeff Mangum (Neutral Milk...
Other Men
Other Men Wake Up Swimming [4/5] After years of spreading himself thin across countless projects (Thingy, Physics, Pinback, Goblin Cock, et al.), Rob Crow has resurrected the band that first put him on the indie-rock map-even if under a different name this time. Comprising all of Heavy Vegetable but singer Elea Tenuta, Other Men find...
Battles
Battles Mirrored [4.5/5] If you thought Battles’ three previous EPs were expectation-shattering, then brace your brainpan for the band’s full-length debut; because with Mirrored, the NYC-based supergroup (alumni of Don Caballero, Helmet, Tomahawk and Lynx, as well as jazz legend Anthony Braxton’s offspring) make their previously next-level extrapolations of electro-instrumental math-funk sound feeble in comparison....
The Only Children
The Only Children Keeper Of Youth It’s difficult to really hate the Black Crowes. The band’s brand of retro rock is so patently inoffensive that even if you think they’re regurgitating songs you’ve heard before, it’s hard to care enough to get mad. The same goes for the Only Children, the brainchild of former Anniversary...
Glös
Harmonium [4/5] Some of us remember when Richmond, Virginia’s little band that could, Engine Down, introduced new member Keeley Davis, who reshaped the band behind his formidable vocal prowess. Keeley has since joined the ranks of Sparta, but he found time to issue this project that also includes former ED drummer Cornbread Compton and ex-Denali/current...
The Gang Font feat. Interloper
The Gang Font feat. Interloper The Gang Font Feat. Interloper [3/5] Greg Norton of Hüsker Dü is still rocking the deadliest handlebar mustache this side of Rollie Fingers, but there’s not much else about this record to connect the dots to Norton’s storied past in one of punk rock’s most important power trios. This is...
Jarvis Cocker
Jarvis Cocker Jarvis [4/5] After detours writing for ingénues past (Nancy Sinatra) and present (Charlotte Gainsbourg) as well as the electro-Goth of Relaxed Muscle, the hour has finally struck for Jarvis Cocker, solo artist. And Jarvis is a ripe thriller, the work of a facile talent with a newfound fecund baritone that goes places where...