Tag: review

New Album Review: Sugar Candy Mountain- 666

Lauren McKnight June 29, 2016

After Mama Cass was burned at the stake for witchcraft, she was reincarnated as Ash Reiter from Sugar Candy Mountain. The devil wears paisley in the new album “666” by this Joshua Tree duo (Mama) Ash, and her counterpart, Will Halsey. Grooving on an enigmatic theme of reality vs. perception, “666” is a Ouija board that only answers “MAYBE”, “YES”, and “SHIT IM HIGH”. 666 by Sugar Candy Mountain The album carries a 1960’s European style of mystery and class reminiscent of the original James Bond movies. “666” has you hitting the road in a classic Aston Martin on a journey to a magical time before smoking was bad for you and Chlamydia hadn’t been invented yet. Will Halsey has been found in such Bay Area bands as The Blank Tapes, and Fpodbpod. Ash Reiter is the friggin founder of a music festival called “Hickey Fest”, and with their powers combined they are Captain Holy-shit! Sugar Candy Mountain have been compared to bands such as Tame Impala and Jacco Gardener. Their simple yet resonant sound has a devilish day dream quality, and a stimulating vibrance. While I’ve found some of their previous work to be strongly reminiscent of The Beatles’

New Album Review: Broncho- Double Vanity

Lauren McKnight June 24, 2016

With a feeling of reckless security I can only associate with driving to buy a Plan B pill the morning after prom night, the third and latest Broncho album has me captivated like Stockholm Syndrome. If John Hughes made a goth movie, Double Vanity released on June 10th via Dine Alone Records would be the soundtrack. The hauntingly lackadaisical droning of Ryan Lindsey’s vocals intertwined with heavy instrumentals and reverb have an almost acid-like effect on the listener’s brain. You may be left with an overwhelming urge to let yourself drop to the bottom of a kaleidoscopic ocean filled with cartoon fish; do you ever think Mr. Limpet was just on shrooms? While the band is referred to as “garage rock” (which is a genre more accurately describing their previous albums), I can’t help but be reminded of a similar resonance as The Black Angels; maybe because I prefer to listen to both bands naked, in a dark room, or maybe because I’ve taken enough psychedelics in my life that everything I enjoy feels like a “far out trip man”. If someone stuck a stick in the spokes of The Warlocks’ circle jerk it’d probably sound like this album. I was

New Album Review: Death Grips- Bottomless Pit

Danny Baraz May 13, 2016

It seems that Death Grips have finally made it through the other side of their artistic adolescence. They have spent their entire careers rejecting and rebelling against “basic bitch-dom” in their relationship with fans, labels and music critics and up to this point, they’ve been as erratic as a pubescent teenager. Not unlike an adolescent Jesus in the lost books of the bible, Death Grips are using their power and influence to blind the bullies, even as their artistic output is as regular as a sensible diet that is high in fiber. While Death Grips toyed with unorthodox styles of music and career choices, there was no drop off in output. Their latest release, “Bottomless Pit” is their 5th, full length studio album and 9th release altogether and between the release of JennyDeath and BP, Death Grips have been showing up for every show as well as maintaining a regular tour schedule. Are Death Grips assimilating into a more traditional career path? That remains to be seen but being a Death Grips fan continues to be an interactive scavenger hunt for sound and imagery, as fans are always an integral part of their artistic output. In the past, they have

New Album Review: NOTHING- Tired of Tomorrow

Rob Shepyer May 9, 2016

“And never have I felt so deeply at one and the same time so detached from myself and so present in the world.” – Albert Camus This is a review of Tired of Tomorrow by Philadelphia band, NOTHING being released on May 13th on Relapse Records. I like any band described as lush, an adjective commonly attached to Shoegaze, a style of rock that uses copious amounts of distortion to make melodic walls of ethereal sound. The name Shoegaze was attached to these artists because one reporter noticed they stared down at the stage rather than at the audience. Nothing, with their blending of ambient and punk, is a band that doesn’t make me want to gaze at my shoes but rather gaze up at the night sky as if it’s the fourth of July and I just broke up with my girlfriend and I’m watching fireworks with tear glazed eyes, smiling because I’m still alive. Nothing, made up of Domenic Palermo (guitar/vocals), Brandon Setta (guitar/vocals), Kyle Kimball (drums), Nick Bassett (bass), brings elements of punk, hardcore, and alternative to Shoegaze that line its wall of sound with razor wire. I listen to them and think of bands like Husker

New Album Review: Wild Wing- The Glory Forever

Brent Smith April 4, 2016

Wild Wing has undergone a peculiar mutation in the last three years. Their first self-titled EP spilled into their second, Another Victory for the Forces of Darkness, both heavy on the combative wit and long instrumental rambling. Songs like “O, Cuntry!” and “Wild Wing Nightmare” are tapped into an unruly swamp sound not felt since the days of Creedence (less finger-pointing protest songs; more working class bar brawl songs). I’m straining to name another hillbilly punk act, but I honestly can’t think of one. Wild Wing pulls off a surfer redneck jive like no one else; cheeky like The Butthole Surfers but not as abstract. If L.A. were to ever have a backwoods sound, now is the time. The band’s first LP The Glory Forever (its cover depicting a native chief stabbing a white soldier in the heart atop bodies of his slain people) is the declaration of a new, weird California sound—the kind that opts out of both Coachella and Stagecoach for a thrash alleyway hoedown on a radioactive beach. If the Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia sold their souls via reality TV contracts and uprooted to Hollywood, Wild Wing is who would play their barn-burning welcoming

David Bowie- Blackstar Video Blows the Internet’s Mind

Brent Smith November 23, 2015

Just as the free world is seemingly at its most bleak, Ascended Master and dabbler musician David Bowie sends earthlings a new transmission named Blackstar. Much to the elation of the Internet and as he’s always done, David Bowie puts to bed the notion that pop music is just some lowbrow fetish. It didn’t take long for the newly released video of the title track “★” (“Blackstar”) to go viral, with well over 1 million views in two days, setting off a slew of comment thread brushfires across the digiscape. “★” is an eerie space opera that trips from forlorn ancient astronauts deep in the cosmos to terrestrial-bound she-pagans with crucified scarecrows in their fields. Bowie’s familiar, hypnotic voice dips under and over a well-produced hopscotch of glam pop and doom jazz, framed with vivid cinematography from director Johan Renck and packed with enough esoteric symbolism to make Alex Jones’ head explode. With iconic peers like Bob Dylan and Tom Waits still putting out new work and damning retirement, we shouldn’t be surprised to still be hearing from the man who brought us “Let’s Dance” (probably one of the most sampled pop songs out there). There’s just something way more

Album Review: Yacht- I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler

Brent Smith October 27, 2015

It really doesn’t matter where you find your music these days. Bargain bins, the end credits of some popular show, a comment thread on Youtube. With America’s recent (though probably not lasting) damnation of record stores and the lost art of collecting, you’re lucky just to find it. I’ll be the first to admit that the first time I heard Y▲CHT was off GTA V’s soundtrack. I was speeding down Vespucci Blvd. toward the beach in my purple Bravado Gauntlet when I flipped the dial to Radio Mirror Park and was hit with the hooky gem “Psychic City (Voodoo City)”. I was instantly reminded me of a Kim Wilde “Kids in America” declaration that had taken on some deeper, incorporeal aspect. You’ve definitely had your ear to the tracks if you’ve been following YACHT’s eleven year career, which spans six studio albums on four different labels. The new LP I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler (Released on October 16th through Downtown Records) is YACHT’s third as duo, comprised of founding member/laptop virtuoso Jona Bechtolt and vocalist/science journalist Claire L. Evans. It’s an album that echoes our collective, disappointed sentiments about the year 2015 (just in time for Back to

Review: The Dead Weather- Dodge and Burn

Alfonso Contreras October 1, 2015

I’m gonna be honest here, and you can take me to the chopping block for it if it makes you feel better. I’m not a big fan of every project that surrounds this cast – Now with that being said The Dead Weather has created a die hard, simple yet smart, banging record that is easily digested and sticks to the roof of your brain. No group of musicians work this well together without it being in tune and inspired by one another. For me, it is always an honor to write and share my opinions on the underrated. You might be saying to yourselves “but all four of these cats sit in the perfect seat for scootin’ on up the music biz ladder”. Maybe you think they don’t need the attention, or they’re privileged, if not more privileged than most other musicians. We’ve seen many talented collaborations of super-groups fail and fail badly. The truth is, The Dead Weather being a colab project of well known artists opens them up for more credibility to lose and more criticism to gain. For me, good music is good music, and bad music is…well, bad. My first reaction of the Dodge and

New Album Review: Radkey- Dark Black Makeup

Brent Smith September 4, 2015

Radkey was always a young band with an old soul. Now, with a more-than-polished debut LP finally under their belts, becoming festival circuit regulars, and amassing a fan base that dates back five years, the three notoriously young Radke brothers from the Show-Me State aren’t so young anymore. Dark Black Makeup—recorded alongside producer Ross Orton (Artic Monkeys, The Fall, Jarvis Cocker)—is a testament to the work the three duders Dee (vocals/guitar), Isaiah (bass) and Solomon (drums) put into their first two EPs, Cat And Mouse and Devil Fruit. There’s definitely some mainstream appeal here, and I don’t mean that derogatorily. I want to hear these dudes on KROQ someday. (If they’re not already?! Clearly, I listen to KROQ). Dee’s baritone pipes makes him sound like a veteran rocker twice his age. He can also shred like one too; guitar isn’t soaked in reverb; void of any noisy effects (except for maybe the awesomely dirty track “Glore”); mainly good old fashioned distortion and clever riffs; lots of great twangy solo moments. It hit me in a sort of The Cramps meets (proto-punk) Death collision, with a sheen of gritty 60s pop. Simply put, it’s a solid rock album. I know we

New Album Review: HEALTH- Death Magic

Danny Baraz August 14, 2015

Los Angeles’s own, HEALTH and their new album, Death Magic released by Loma Vista on August 7th might very well be my top record of 2015, thus far. Even with a more polished, less noise influenced battery of songs, HEALTH manage to keep that dark edge that mixes beauty with taboo concepts of the human condition and is delivered to fans in their familiar package of abstract messaging. There seems to be a formula developing in the nebulous vacuum that was once the music industry. It’s really not all that different than what existed previously. The previewing of new singles in the months leading up to an album release isn’t an original concept. There is just a greater volume of them, which has allowed fans to hear more of an album before it’s official release. That is, if there isn’t a strategy to “leak” the album. There was a very calculated build up to the release of Death Magic and a real attempt to control the message of music critics, which is a departure from the typical, laissez faire vibe of HEALTH. Death Magic successfully manages to cut the chord in the eternal association between HEALTH and Crystal Castles, not just

New Album Review: Damaged Bug- Cold Hot Plumbs

Danny Baraz June 4, 2015

Of course you can expect the typical, justified hype around the release of Thee Oh Sees’ 9th full length studio album, “Mutilator Defeated at Last” on Dwyer’s, Castle Face Records. It is the kind of work we’ve come not only to love but EXPECT from the mind of John Dwyer. Thee Oh Sees continue to be one of the most exciting and high energy acts in independent music but what about that Damaged Bug album that dropped this week? What the hell is Damaged Bug, you ask? Damaged Bug is an experiment in musical isolationism. It is a collaboration of ones own individuality and an intimate, private party amongst ones own multiple personalities. Damaged Bug explores time and space in a broken down space ship. John Dwyer seems to be cruising the nebula in search of new elements of sound and song structure and what he finds is both unique AND accessible. Cold Hot Plumbs is Damaged Bug’s second full-length release. It is a rescue dog that is adopted just moments before being euthanized. Dwyer’s use of both analog and digital sound design, sequenced programming and of course, melodic storytelling gives fans a new and dynamic spin on Lord Dwyer’s songwriting