Joshua James
The Sun is Always Brighter

Sometimes Vanilla is the Tastiest.

Folk, just like rock, pop, and hip-hop, is obsessed with the idea of offering something unique within the genre. Iron & Wine's gospel dirt serenity, Josh Ritter's railman poetry, Conor Oberst's rapturous punk gaul, and Damien Rice's heavy-handed English sorrow are all prime examples of folk's submission to the human need for flavoring in everything (side note: this is not saying anything on the excellence of the aforementioned artists, or their personal authenticity). So, after waltzing through Joshua James' simple The Sun is Always Brighter, the question somehow remains; what is Joshua James' flavor?

Exactly.

Musicality that doesn't drag, clear, if a little repetitive, lyrical voice, instrumentation that never overpowers, and a cat-like voice that recalls equal parts Andrew Hull and...

Less Than Jake
GNV FLA

The very last song on GNV FLAis a song called “Devil in My DNA”. It’s three minutes and twenty-eight seconds of singer/bassist Roger ranting about faith vs. fate, nature vs. nurture, and whether or not anyone but himself can be to blame for life’s misfortunes. It’s set against one of the best riffs Less than Jake has written in years and it’s delivered with a vocal force I feel rivals their classic “Al’s War”. It hit home immediately upon first listen. It made me think about my past, my present, and my future without depressing me one bit – no small feat. Out of all of the pieces that make this song great, the song and GNV FLA can be summed up by one line: “Fact is, I’m just a living sum/of all my parts.”

Even though Less than Jake has firmly been a ska band and little else (except for a departure...

Girl Talk
Feed the Animals

It's the Third of July! Let's Dance!

I was at a party last night for the fourth of July. Yes, technically it was the third of July, but don't dog me for needing an excuse to remind my underage friends that I can legally get wasted. Anyway, I decided that in order to spice the background music up a bit (the playlist thus far had been a dirge of 90s Rock Band cuts), I would slap in my (legally) burned copy of Girl Talk's, aka Greg Gillis', new album Feed The Animals. Sure enough, halfway through "Play Your Part (Part 1)," there were semi-drunk people identifying "Walk it Out," "We're Not Gonna Take it Anymore," and "Pop Bottles" out of the mash-up glory of Gillis. Scattered remarks were made about the excellence of the samples of the songs ("I LOVE Tom Petty's "American Girl" [which is featured on "give me a...

Alkaline Trio
Agony and Irony

Let the bitching begin.

Outside of Against Me!, I’d have to say Alkaline Trio has the most impossible to please fans. Everything from before their major label debut (from here on out referred to as “The Old Stuff”) is held on a plateau that is impossible to reach. Rightfully so. Goddamnit and Maybe I’ll Catch Fire pull absolutely no punches on delivering tales of universal heartbreak through filters of morbid one liners and gallons of shitty beer. Soon enough, major labels came calling and the result was the incredibly divisive Good Mourning. The band had shifted wildly to the oh-so-trendy goth image of the early 00’s, and the lyrical themes shifted along with them. As I’ve said, the band has always been morbid (“Radio”, anyone?), but the self-deprecating lyrical flair seemed to be traded in for self-pitying. This trend followed on the...

Simian Mobile Disco
Live From SoHo

If I had the money to go to a record store I would...

One might recall a few years back, in 2006, the song of the summer was "We are Your Friends" by Justice. The vocals from that track were taken from Simian's "Never Be Alone". They were a small band from the U.K. that broke up after two albums. The two main members of the band started remixing other artists under the name Simian Mobile Disco just as a joke, but when their remixes were getting quite popular they decided to make SMD an actual dance "group".

In 2007 they released their debut album Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release to rave reviews being called "a refreshing take on electro house" and it certainly is. A very strong and powerful debut record. With all the hype surrounding their album, Apple asked the band to perform early...

The Offspring
Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace

It’s been 10 years since The Offspring’s last smash album (Pun totally intended). It’s been 14 years since their biggest hit. And believe it or not, it’s been 20 years since their first album. That’s a long time for anything, let alone a band – especially a punk band. At their best, The Offspring have been able to eerily predict the future (“Come Out ‘N Play”), tap the vein of kids a generation removed from them (“The Kids Aren’t Alright”) and make me laugh (“Pretty Fly For a White Guy”). That said, the band’s definitely getting older. Their touring and recording schedule has definitely slowed down since the beginning of the millennium, plus the success of Americana seemed to raise their dependence on novelty singles. While their age continues to show, Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace has proven to be the band’s best release this decade.

...

Cute Is What We Aim For
Rotation

In Defense of Cute Is What We Aim For.

Alright everybody, let's all get our heads out of our asses here for a second. Let's all recognize that what we do here is basically glorify underground music for the sake of bringing down radio-worthy music, which we believe rarely has any value. What are we thinking? If we were any more conceited, we might work for another website (which I will not name here).

So I'm turning over a new leaf: I'm defending Cute is What We Aim For. I mean, come on! Give props to a band that doesn't really hide behind some vague, indie-movie referencing band name; these guys don't try and fool you. They actually aim for being cute. I mean, it pays to be that honest (doesn't it)!

And their new album, literally, describes the physical process of playing it (man these guys say exactly what they mean)....

Coldplay
Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends


Coldplay catch their footing in new territory, but haven't quite come to a sprint yet.

Coldplay has always been one of those bands that you listen to when you didn’t want to be surprised or challenged, but you just wanted to hear some enjoyable music. With their first album Parachutes, Coldplay displayed a knack for catchy moments thrown into some generally well-crafted yet predictable light rock. On their sophomore album, A Rush of Blood to the Head (which I personally find to be a wonderful album), they maintained their knack for hooks while improving the quality and richness of their music, but still stayed within safe territory sonically. Then, on X&Y they stumbled a bit. The music wasn’t quite as solid, but through the attempted ambient noise and almost-noise-rock distortion on some of the tracks they displayed a desire to step out of their...

Sigur Ros
Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaus

Shiny Happy People (Finally) Making Shiny Happy Music.

The world, apparently, doesn't really phase Sigur Ros.

For the better part of 10 years the band has made it their passion to make brooding, glacial pop that actually physically recalled the coast of their beautiful home country of Iceland. But while the world at large has been on its slow economic, political, and social downturn of the past 4-6 years following 9/11, Sigur Ros have been making the happiest music of their careers. And while the poppiness of Takk... was certainly not their best work (just smacks of a little bit too much of an Icelandic version of U2), their 5th proper LP, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaus (shortened to MSIEVSE, which isn't much easier) might come close. Roughly translated to mean "With a Buzz in Our Ears, We Play Endlessly," the...

Cut Copy
In Ghost Colours

So good even New Order is jealous...

Let's flashback to 2004 and focus on a band you may have heard of called Franz Ferdinand. They decide to tour the U.S. and perform in large outdoor arenas where they choose a little band from down under named Cut Copy to open for them. They are completely unknown here in the states but they are massive in their homeland of Australia selling out stadiums. They arrive on stage dressed as the hipsters as they are and begin to play the best electronic music I have heard since Daft Punk. I instantly run to their merchandise booth and pick up their debut album Bright Like Neon Love and I fall in love on the first track. Pure electronic new wave bliss.

Cut Copy teased us in 2007 with the release of the singles Hearts on Fire and So Haunted, both are phenominal peices of...

Weezer
The Red Album

A Full Piece of Art and Probably Not (Sadly).

The headline of this review contains two answers to questions that go directly to the absorption of Weezer's most recent self-titled effort. What are the questions, you ask? Wait for it.

Anyway, Weezer have been getting a lot of flak lately, and not all of it is defensible. Sure, they wrote "Beverly Hills," but keep in mind that what Rivers Cuomo does is stick his tongue in his cheek and try and confuse you by drawing a line between sincerity and vitriol. And yes, that's the "Numa Numa" guy in their video for "Pork and Beans," but to be fair, the "Numa Numa" guy could have said no. What's at the heart of a review of Weezer must be the music, and unfortunately this is the first roadblock in accepting The Red Album.

It's not hard to absorb Weezer's music, per se,...