Bon Iver
Bon Iver

In the first of his whole hearted and frank explanations of where the Hell he's been, Ozzy looks as the salvation offered by Bon Iver's sophomore, self titled effort.


This review was supposed to come out a lot sooner than it is doing but unfortunately, as those of you who are avid readers of this site will perhaps have noticed, I have been absent for a couple of months and, after missing much of the summer’s record releases and consequently all of the celebrity hip-swinging parties that come with them, I am finally back in the office to tell my harrowing and unbelievable story.

Some time last year you may remember that on this very site something comparable to the battle of Hastings took place following my review of Prince’s (and I still stand by this) God-Awful ransacking of all that is good and decent...

Shabazz Palaces
Black Up


In the evening when the riots broke out in Birmingham I was cruising through the city centre with Shabazz Palaces' Black Up blaring out of my windows and the bass made the reflections in my wing mirrors shake. I had no idea that riots were breaking out however. In fact I was trying desperately to make it to Argos to actually purchase a CD storage unit for my new house. However I was frustrated in my efforts to cut back across town in time to get to Argos before it closed. I didn't make it getting caught instead in a quagmire of traffic and police sirens but remaining oblivious to the violent events taking place around me because I was absorbed in the music and how cool it was probably making me look even though I was queueing as opposed to cruising by the time it got into full swing.

Black Up hits its stride about halway through but there is an initial burst of energy in the opening track,...

St. Vincent
Strange Mercy

Warning: Reductive Asshole Ahead

There’s a unique brand of music that’s come in vogue in the past few years. I don’t have a name for it, but it’s come around now that “Hipster” music has gone semi-mainstream. Bands like Death Cab for Cutie and Modest Mouse were at the forefront of whatever this is, but Arcade Fire best exemplifies this brand. We know the story: Band gets big on the down-low on a label like Sub-Pop or Barsuk, releasing several albums that may be scattershot, but have such a unique take on whatever they’re playing that they cultivate more and more of a following with each album. Soon enough, major labels come knocking, and the initial fans are either overly defensive...

Primus
Green Naugahyde

It’s been 12 years since we’ve heard anything new from Les Claypool and his merry band of misfits in Primus. Over the intervening time, we’ve seen Claypool do everything from release a super-group album (Oysterhead), win over the jam-band crowd with his bizarre solo albums, and even release a book. However well-received these ventures may have been, none quite matched the rapturous response the band received during its sporadic reunion tours in which they played their classic albums straight through. The die-hards clearly still loved the band as much as ever, and the wave of new albums from 90s bands was seemingly endless. One thing was for sure: there had never been a better time for a new Primus...

Paul White
Rapping with Paul White

A Refreshing Touch of Madness

Back in '95 I walked around for about three months with mice in my eyes after reading Catch 22 and taking a liking to Appleby and his madness caused by flies in his eyes. I had moved on from flies as I didn't want to be seen as a lemming, mainly because lemmings have no place on any part of the body and my brother was keeping mice for a school project, but in a cage, not in his eyes. In retrospect his project would have been more interesting had he allowed me to be his test subject but he has a Masters in sciency stuff nowadays so I don't think that my interference with his experiment hindered his passage though life.

Having mice in your eyes is surprisingly painful as you have to attach them with their front teeth which are exactly as they appear in the cartoons, long and rabbity, a bit like rabbit teeth but smaller and easier to slide...

Red Hot Chili Peppers
I’m With You

Number One, or Number Two?

I’d imagine that most of us over the age of eight have at one point or another have suffered through an optometrist appointment. We’ve all sat in that uncomfortable chair, hunched over into the chin-cup while a slightly greying older man gets a bit too close for comfort. And no matter what, we’ve all experienced the moment of clarity that comes when the doctor is asking whether lens one or lens two is better, and number two pops everything into focus. Such a moment happens less than a minute into I”m With You opener “Monarchy of...

Against Me!
Black Crosses

In my review of Against Me!’s 2010 release White Crosses, I said the following:

“Perhaps the band was trying to make a meta-statement against the overly sensitive backlash mongers, perhaps they want to have a sound that will fill arenas, but the cold hard fact is that the overproduction on White Crosses hobbles the album irreparably. The blame for this almost certainly falls on producer Butch Vig, who has

...

William Elliott Whitmore
Field Songs

2009’s Animals in the Dark was a bit of a shock to we long-time William Elliott Whitmore fans. Gone were the uncomfortably personal tales of loss, woe, and depression, replaced with an album’s worth of songs focusing on tyranny and how the world reacts under the pressure of tyranny. The change from The Lone Voice of Death on the Horizon to Commentator on World Events was a shock to the system, but it was buffered by the bleak, roiling anger occasionally present on the first half and the celebration of life on the second half. Field Songs ...

The Poison Control Center
Stranger Ballet

(Re)Born on the Freeway, 2010.

The Poison Control Center has been hammering out their brand of rock and roll for roughly a decade now, but only with the release of last year’s Sad Sour Future did the band begin to get noticed on a national level. The band had never shied away from the rigors of the road, but the tour they embarked upon to support Sad Sour Future was unprecedented: the band is STILL on tour after a year of shows, ...

Fucked Up
David Comes to Life

Here We Go Again.

The Punk Police will never die, will they? Any band that’s ever been deemed “Punk” by any writer, fan, or passer-by has had to deal with the inevitable conversation of whether or not said band fits the descriptor of “Punk”. Frankly, I think the whole discussion is ridiculous - “Punk” in its purest form probably died in the 1970s. But, the style of music carried on - we had the hardcore movement in the 1980s with Bad Brains and Black Flag, we had the so-called “Punk Revival” in the 1990s with The Offspring, Green Day, and Rancid, and we’ve had the innumerable amount of post-punk bands in the wake of the new millennium. But what really makes a punk band? Is it a...

Death Cab for Cutie
Codes and Keys

Surely many people would be worried with the events leading to Codes and Keys. Narrow Stairs was a bit of a departure from the tried and true Death Cab formula into a winding, sometimes overwrought exploration of depression, gorges, and brush fires. Add that sonic exploration to known depressive (and recently admitted “alcoholic”) Ben Gibbard getting married to the Alpha Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and nobody that had ever heard anything by DCFC would question some hesitation leading up to the release of this album. ...