"Populist rage without the screaming a..." more

"Populist rage without the screaming and loud guitars? That's the Evens. Sweet, sweet melodies and vocal harmonies by Ian McKaye of Minor Threat/ Fugazi and Amy Farina of The Warmers.

The two piece band is Ian on guitar and Amy on drums, and their first record is worth a listen. It's interesting to hear where politics and catchy song-writing butt heads, succeeding or failing because of the message or in spite of it." less

"Noah Lennox, AKA Panda Bear made the ..." more

"Noah Lennox, AKA Panda Bear made the Brian Wilson solo comeback record that the former Beach Boy lacks the faculty to make himself.
Person Pitch is a wash of Wilson-esque multi-track harmonies and weirdly pleasant sounds. This is an example of what electronic sampling and production can do to lift up the spirit and warm the heart, truly the answer to the cold, guttural, dirty abrasiveness found in IDM and much of experimental rock.
P.B. has an inexhaustible war-chest of rubbing/scraping/clicking noises to deposit way way down in the mix, as well as the ever-present sound of splurshing water. Bird sounds, shuddering metal and echo-ey vocals melt together into some damned friendly ‘noise.’
I've never heard a record which so closely duplicates the sensation of a warm bath on a rainy Saturday until I heard Person Pitch: Work is but a pinhole sized disturbance almost two days away, and if I close my eyes and sink down into the water and let the world go, I am gone.
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"This record is ten tracks and is over..." more

"This record is ten tracks and is over in less than 22 minutes, making it the most efficient and pure stripped down rock-and-roll delivery mechanism in recent memory. Three girls working out of Brooklyn combine garage punk minimalism with bitter-sweet lyrics and '60s girl-group melodies. The best track on this album, and perhaps the best track released in 2008 is 'Where Do You Run To.' Download that, listen to it once a day for three days, and tell me that it was immpossible to listen to it just once a day and you broke down and downloaded the whole record on day two." less

"End Hits is considered by some to be ..." more

"End Hits is considered by some to be a lesser work of the famed Washington D.C. rock quartet, but I've always found it's loose structure and dalliances into experimentation a huge plus. Also, it has one of my favorite songs, with lyrics written and sung by Joe Lally, "Recap Modotti." I find this album's balance brave, spaced out adventures (e.g. "Closed Captioned") to straight ahead loud hardcore (e.g. Five Corporations) to be just right." less

"This is a concept album about the end..." more

"This is a concept album about the end of the world, in which the children of Israel are called back to the promised land (Texas, of course) to fight with Winston rifle's while smoking Winston cigarettes.

In other words, the best concept album ever. One approach to describing their sound effectively might be a weird cross between My Bloody Valentine, Led Zeppelin, and Jeff Buckley. Josh Pearson leads the trio with his virtuoso guitar playing and a voice which manages to sell all of the album's crackpot ideas. When Pearson asks god for a hit record in exchange for prophesying the coming apocalypse to the people of earth, you believe in that conversation.

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