Eric Saeger The two or three adventurer-listener readers out there familiar with Anticon’s catalog of avant-hip-hop records will know what I mean when I say that this is very San Francisco. A native Pennsylvanian, rapper/singer Sonya Tomlinson is nowadays a cog in the Portland, Maine scene, the most ambitious and enthusiastically supported accumulation of New […]
Lizzy Borden – Appointment With Death
Eric Saeger Oh ho, so now it’s an “appointment with death” you want to foist upon the world, Lizzy? Back when the only low-rent-spectacle competing against Lizzy Borden shows was Triceratops vs Tyrannosaurus in the steel cage, you guys sure sounded like Motley Crue. You are so bagged. All the thrasher kids took up the […]
Sia – Some People Have Real Problems
Eric Saeger If Zero 7 is your choice of quasi-electro chill, Aussie chanteuse Sia Furler’s sort of an old homie. Her last sounding was on the 2006 Zero 7 album The Garden, where she was assigned a few knuckleball tunes, though none that come close to revealing her more barmy (and original) side; the Z7 […]
Led Zeppelin – Mothership
Eric Sager The latest in a long line of remastered Zep classics is all rehash apart from the remaining three band members (in other words, Jimmy Page, with Plant and John Paul Jones sipping brandy at separate tables somewhere within driving distance of the studio) having done a little re-engineering of the overall sound. I’ll […]
Genesis – Live Over Europe 2007
Eric Saeger Okay, stop thinking about whatever you’re thinking about and think about Genesis and all the memories you associate with them. “Follow You Follow Me” playing softly in the background while the dentist peers evilly at your sleeping tooth roots. The GMC commercial with the seminal 80s synth line from “Turn It On Again” […]
Blake Lewis – Audio Daydream
Eric Sager American Idol-watching potato chip addicts love exploding their phone bills into smithereens through the act of repeatedly voting for mildly entertaining people they view as critical cogs in the cultural ecosystem. Not enough of them voted for Blake Lewis to get him past Jordin Sparks (expectant parents, would you kindly consult dictionary.com for […]
Bigelf – Hex
Eric Saeger By now I can’t begin to guess how many times my hopes have been dashed when an album comes in from a band slotted to warm up your local middling-big crowd, not that UK crew Bigelf are on the calendar yet, but they’re probably the only mid-sized, well-promoted indie-metal band that isn’t. And […]
Raine Maida – The Hunters Lullaby
Eric Saeger The single nicest surprise so far this music-product off-season is, perplexingly enough, Canadian. Maida, the singer for Our Lady Peace, watched his band run the table at Canadian awards shows and rack up sales everywhere but here in the US, where their biggest exposure came via the song “Whatever,” which, as luck would […]
Athlete – Beyond the Neighborhood
Eric Saeger Athlete is the marginally glitchy big-pop 4-piece people think of as too smart for US radio, a sort of UK-branded Goo Goo Dolls to some extent if going by their UK-chart-topping sophomore album Tourist alone. “Airport Disco” is the grabber, one that Alternate Routes must surely be wishing they wrote, with its gentle […]
Ed Harcourt – Until Tomorrow Then: The Best of Ed Harcourt
Eric Saeger So here’s the Ed Harcourt best-of, and… who, you say? A limey music prodigy in the eyes of NME scenesters, Harcourt was accused of running out of ideas by his third LP or somewhere around there, but when one confines himself to a Badly Drawn Boy space with extra 70s thrown in, the […]
Patrick Humphries: The Many Lives Of Tom Waits
…despite its considerable size, Patrick Humphries’ attempt to delve into Waits’ life only just manages to scrape beneath the surface…”
The Fall: Reformation Post TLC
“…very much into the bellowing apparently- random- words- as- associational- poetry mode. “Cheese-sticks!” “Goldfish bowl!” “No Newsnight for you Baby!”…” Ben Granger Reformation Post TLC – The Fall See all books by The Fall at Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com Chapter 303: In which our hero, the greatest lyrical visionary of the past century to spring from […]
Someone To Drive You Home: The Long Blondes
“…with this far less feted CD, the Long Blondes definitely made the best album of that year, on every level…” Ben Granger Someone To Drive You Home – The Long Blondes See all albums by The Long Blondes at Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com To be one of the immortals, one of the greats, a band needs […]
Djizoes: “The Erkonos Project”
Nicely dimensioned punk-prog indebted to an odd cast of influences that would have to include Alice in Chains, roots emo, Rush and Pennywise. Although comparable to Ozzy’s first couple of records in a strictly technical sense, the scenery is much more homemade and unglossed, sort of a metal-tinged Blue Star. Order at djizoes.com
Red Hot Chili Peppers: “Stadium Arcadium”
Before bawling into their lattes over the unholy pummeling this album is going to receive at the hands of critics, long-time thirtysomething fans of the Chili Peppers might pause to think about how Generation Amercrombie is going to feel about their hip-hopping mojo being flattened when one of these snoozers starts dribbling out of the […]
Zombi: “Surface to Air”
An odd care package hit the office earlier this year from Relapse, containing not the expected metalpalooza thrash headliner but instead a clutch of instrumentalists which included Don Caballaro. Unlike the more famous Caballaro, Zombi is more lo-fi and less prog, remindful of Kraftwerk in their prime and fixating on subdural will o’ the wispiness, […]
Gnarls Barkley: “St. Elsewhere”
Cautious consumers shouldn’t expect Dungeon Family-era Cee-Lo here (as if that ship hadn’t sailed a while ago), or any largely comparable effort for that matter; this team-up with Brian Burton’s Danger Mouse character may indeed not be liked at all by even the lowliest mall-gangsta who typically finds hirself hypnotized by loosely related product like […]
Jenny Davis: “It Amazes Me”
Like June Christy, jazz chanteuse Davis comes off relaxed and smoldering while reciting these standards, and her band (sax, piano, guitar and upright bass in the main) lends her second album (in follow-up to 2000’s Daydream) the subtle friendliness of a coffee table book. The record kicks off with “It Don’t Mean a Thing If […]
Ahab Rex: “The Queen of Softcore”
EP containing five versions of an indie-dance droner that resembles a meth-ed out Rico Suave ruminating over his pet bimbo while a pet bimbo utters doo-wahs in the background, all this to mid-BPM prattling that’s non-fuzzed Queens of the Stone Age-vs-jazz chords 101. The takes range from Massive Attack bink-bink techno to long-dead 90s indie, […]
Gram Rabbit: “Cultivation”
Seriously too groovy and timely for US indie radio, Gram Rabbit tries a lot of different styles on for size – straightjacket shoegaze bliss to post-Kashmir grunge ringouts – and instead of the usual tuneless muck that spells alt for lack of a more honest pigeonhole, it’s this hypnotic, earthshakingly cool cross between Enigma, Madonna, […]
The Sammus Theory: “Man Without Eyes”
Floating in limbo between Bauhaus and metal, Sammus Theory appears to be a demo vehicle for single-named guitarist/singer Sammus, whose whiz-bang guitar work outshines his singing (photogenic though it is – he’s a ringer for Ozzy during “Answers”). Our Sammus likes Stone Temple Pilots quite a bit, as proved in the “Sex Type Thing”-pilfered “Take […]
Lord Belial: “Seal of Belial”
Black metal is enjoying unprecedented respectability thanks to bands like In Flames and Cradle of Filth, but what’s more important is the level of songwriting that’s begun to rise dripping out of the murk. Raw-throated demon-mocking vocals are one thing that separate Lord Belial from goth hard-rock like Fields of the Nephilim, hyperspeed bass-drumming and […]
Das Ich: “Cabaret”
Further proof that Berlin is much cooler than your town. EBM pioneers Das Ich may have lost a few (okay, many) followers with Lava, but Cabaret is an attempt to win them back to witness a schooling of Dresden Dolls in pre-war European weirdness. It all goes down better with a German-English dictionary kept handy […]
Thee More Shallows: “Monkey vs. Shark”
Or Sufjan Stevens vs. Nyquil. Extra-super-deluxe-weird San Franciscan Dee Kessler has half-sings as if he’s trying to keep cool while hiding under the covers from monsters, his accompaniment chirpy, flitting, morose and sometimes danceable synths, mostly in the vein of fringe rebels of mellow frazzledness like Yo La Tengo. The Brits love this so much […]
Bass Tone Trap: “Trapping”
A re-release from 1983, Bass Tone Trap was the launching pad for several Discus Records regulars who’ve gone on to some of – okay, the most – experimental jazz/noise dada found today. Kickoff song “Sanctified” could be thought of as Madness trying to magpie Prince while keeping in the good graces of the patrons of […]
