February 26, 2008

Bloodsimple Red Harvest [2/5] Limp Bizkit used the Doors’ “The End” as entrance music during their first tour, lending their shows a short-lived sense of cinematic foreboding. Bloodsimple invoke the same song during “Ride With Me,” the first cut from Red Harvest, and again it provides unearned atmosphere. Bloodsimple preserve this tune’s violent-rant aesthetic throughout...

Akimbo Navigating The Bronze [4/5] Let’s hope you weren’t planning a quiet evening at home, because Akimbo will have absolutely no part of it. Their latest, Navigating The Bronze, is in some ways a departure from their chaotic style of hardcore, and in other ways an album with even more intensity than anything they’ve...

The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir [4/5] The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir’s debut album begins with the band bashing away at the infectious charms of “Aspidistra” like the early Jam on holiday, as singer Elia Einhorn regales you with tales of his drug-addled youth after setting the stage with the...

Saturday Looks Good To Me Fill Up The Room [4/5] Three years after their last proper release-the retro-poptastic Every Night-Saturday Looks Good To Me return with perhaps their best record to date, and first for new label K. Led by songwriter/producer/guitarist/lead vocalist Fred Thomas, Fill Up The Room is all over the place, from...

The New Amsterdams At The Foot Of My Rival Matt Pryor’s sixth studio album under the New Amsterdams banner sounds like it should have been released in the ’80s. All the elements are present for a thrifty rock ’n’ roll rehash, but it’s Pryor’s intimacy and the liberties he takes with wide open spaces that...

Meneguar Strangers In Our House [3/5] Picture an indie act from Brooklyn playing dancey beats mixed with a gritty, almost punk edge who aren’t afraid of pop, and you’ve got Meneguar. The 11 highly guitar-driven tracks on Strangers In Our House are not a clear step away from, but rather an extension of their...

Bottomless Pit Hammer Of The Gods [4.5/5] Two years after the tragic death of their drummer Michael Dahlquist, Silkworm bassist Tim Midgett and guitarist Andy Cohen have finally returned alongside members of Seam and .22 via their new project, Bottomless Pit. Despite the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the act’s formation, their first output, Hammer Of...

Black Dice Load Blown [2.5/5] Load Blown is a compilation of Black Dice’s three vinyl-only EP releases, and as such, there was a gap between when the earliest material was recorded and the most recent-nearly a year and a half in all-which would indicate at least a potential for variety. That might be the...

Paul Baribeau Grand Ledge [4.5/5] Eighteen minutes and nine seconds. That’s all the time it takes for Michigan native Paul Baribeau to become the king of the folk-punk hill on Grand Ledge, his second proper album. Baribeau’s short narratives range from frantic, peppy numbers designed to motivate (“Ten Things”) to lamenting over a lost...