Music

If there was ever an album that put the “stoner” into “stoner rock” it’s Blues for the Red Sun. Kyuss deliver pummeling hard rock that often gets lost in a sea of psychedelic haziness but reliably always finds its way…

Muchas gracias is a weak finish to the Kyuss legacy that also serves as a poor introduction to it. More of a collection of B-sides and rarities than a "Best of."

Often considered Kyuss‘s best album, and I’m on that side. I said before on my Blues for the Red Sun review that while the psychedelic meanderings of the album were very charming, there were times when they tested my patience and the…

As everyone says, the production on Wretch does indeed suck (I wouldn’t call it wretched, but I want you to know I thought of the pun and could’ve used it). Everything’s too low-level, and this can’t rock as hard as…

A huge departure for Ladytron. ‘Gravity the Seducer’ has an atmospheric vibe that borders on ambient pop as it softly glides by.

L’Aventure Acoustique was released the same year as their “official” second album, Some Are Lakes, and isn’t a traditional album. It is essentially an acoustic reimagining of Land of Talk’s debut EP, Applause Cheer Boo Hiss, right down to having…

Berserker features paganistic folk heavily inspired by Comus. I have a hard time getting into any modern post-Comus pagan folk bands because of the different context. When Comus put out First Utterance in 1971, it was genuinely a risky, controversial move filled with…

Though the mysterious, brooding album cover may suggest otherwise, ‘Eli and the Thirteenth Confession’ is actually a swingin’, progressive soul album.

Post-hardcore is pretty much a dead genre now, but there are some bands that keep the torch burning. One of those bands is Glassjaw, who have been playing since around the genre’s conception and still occasionally release new material. Another…

After the glory days of early 2000s post-hardcore, the genre quickly fizzled out. Every once in a while some late stragglers to the now-dead scene would prove to be as good as any band were while the scene was alive,…

The skits here are pretty horrible. River Runs Red attempts to take on the serious concept of parental neglect and an abusive home life, but the mother’s voice for example sounds so ridiculous and exaggerated that these parts actually take…

Excellent ’90s alternative rock that retains a fair amount of the noise from the first album, which was heavily inspired by the early ’90s shoegazing scene. On the A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns EP, Lilys breaks away from that…

Some listeners hate In the Presence of Nothing because it sounds so similar to My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. Other listeners like this album because it sounds so similar to My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. Of course, it’s not half as good…

Lizzy Mercier Descloux’s classy, lounge-esque vocals on “Tumour” coupled with its perverse, post-punk guitars imitating saxophones it an indisputable highlight. Press Color is generally not energizing enough to be a great dance-punk album, and doesn’t go far enough into no…

The first half of Da Capo is pretty solid psychedelic pop rock despite Love’s ridiculously hammy vocalist. Listening to “¡Que Vida!” and hearing Arthur Lee’s accent could be a contest for how long one can go without laughing. He’s trying…

Bloweyelashwish is completely lacking structure or cohesion. All over the place with no reason to be because it has no good original ideas sonically. Basic, fuzzy shoegaze that uses a bunch of short noisy forgettable drone interludes to try and…

The more I listen to Tetsuo & Youth, the more convinced I am that it’s a modern hip hop masterpiece. I don’t give a shit if Lupe Fiasco isn’t “cool” anymore—but I suspect hip hop listeners at large do. Fiasco…

My most recent listens to Above revealed it to be better than I remembered. Mad Season have given us one of the, say, five or so supergroup albums that’s actually worth multiple spins. On the other hand, the mid-album material…

Confessions on a Dance Floor is the kind of album an older Madonna should be making. Instead of chasing current trends, always a few steps behind and all for the goal of creating a subpar version of those trends, she…

Featured on The Immaculate Collection, “Into the Groove” is in the prestigious hall of fame of “perfect pop songs.” The qualification for entering is, when you ask someone which part of the song is the hook, everyone gives you a…

Madonna’s weakest ’80s synth pop album. Too heavy on slower, low-to-midtempo ballad material. Madonna’s greatest hooks were merciless and could make you shake effortlessly. However, some of these smoother keyboard melodies can get a bit atmospheric at times, such as…

I can see where people are making the connection to latter-career Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, but I think Madrugada sound like a rockier Tindersticks. As such, The Nightly Disease (TND) is great gloomy, nocturnal music to down your liquor to.…

Know Your Enemy is actually my favorite Manic Street Preachers (MSO) album after The Holy Bible. I don’t quite understand why it’s hated. Well, okay; I know what the criticisms are: 1. It’s different from their work from Everything Must Go and onward…

Lifeblood is the second-best Manic Street Preachers (MSP) album after The Holy Bible. For the first time in the MSP catalog, synthesizers take the lead and wash over the guitars, layering everything and making one of the most silky-smooth “rock” albums…

Manuel Göttsching may not have been the first artist to make electronic music, but he was certainly the first artist to make good electronic music, as far as these ears are concerned and as E2-E4 demonstrates. E2-E4 is yet another excellent release…

Both 100th Window and Heligoland have been growing on me lately. They’re more lowkey than their predecessors and definitely slow burns. Where earlier albums like Mezzanine crushed the listener with the oppressive power of its heavy bass and toyed with them using its twisted dark soundscapes…

Some days, I think Blue Lines has better album flow than Mezzanine. “Safe From Harm” hits as soon as the sun fully sets, the skies darken, the streetlights dim, and not a voice can be heard coming from the barely-lit…

Danny the Dog sounds like a soundtrack album. It is, of course. My point is that it doesn’t stand well on its own, in my opinion. If you’re thinking there might be some songs with vocals here that might be…

“False Flags” is a pretty solid deep cut, also available on the two-disc versions of Collected. However, the B-side “United Snakes” has never been officially re-released, to my knowledge. It’s the longest song Massive Attack have ever done, excepting the closer…

People who write Heligoland off as a generic trip hop album probably don’t have much experience with the genre. “Babel” incorporates breakbeat, for just one example. Heligoland is an intelligently-composed album that subtly incorporates unusual elements into its songwriting. The…

There’s something odd about Protection that makes it my second least-favorite Massive Attack album. I think I know what it is. Protection lacks cohesiveness. It comes across as a compilation of rejected Blue Lines songs and B-sides rather than a…

Yerself Is Steam is a big pool of stereotypical early ’90s alternative rock noise to get lost in. If you’re a fan of the aesthetic as I am, it’ll make you feel just at home. This is best viewed as a collage…

After loving Sketches of Spain, I thought my relationship with Miles Davis was beginning to blossom in a positive direction, but I’m brought back down with how cold—or hell, aggravated—A Tribute to Jack Johnson made me feel. Combined with my…

I was already prepared to say “too much hardcore, not enough post-hardcore” after listening to What Makes a Man Start Fires?, which is significant because I’m a big fan of one and care little for the other. No points for…

Forget is a collection of pre-Vs. Mission of Burma demos. Raw and unrefined, yet appropriately so, making further evident Mission of Burma’s roots in punk, specifically of the hardcore variety. The average song tempo here is much faster than most anything…

As a compilation, I can’t leverage much of a complaint about this self-titled release. Here we get Vs. and Signals, Calls, and Marches, Mission of Burma‘s two best releases on one CD alongside other rarities. The one odd flaw with this is that…

Is there another post-punk band that shreds as viciously as Mission of Burma? Vs. is from 1982, and I’m picking up strains of post-hardcore. Nobody could keep up with these guys. If Mission of Burma teamed their relentless attack up…

Hey, it’s Modern English, the one-hit wonder band! That one hit of course being the phenomenal “I Melt With You,” one of the most beautiful rock singles ever made. But other than that song, who really gives a damn about…

Grungy stoner rock that does a decent job of setting itself apart from its more generic peers by adding psychedelic undertones and just generally having more great riffs than the typical ’90s hard rock album. Problems are that Monster Magnet’s…

No shoegaze on …XYZ, despite what some will tell you. A lot of soft vocals and reverberating guitars (and string instruments!) may evoke a calming sea (well, more of a lake, here) of sound similar to shoegaze, but there’s no…

I wish Your Arsenal were my favorite Morrissey album. I wish it were. Probably because “Bigmouth Strikes Again” and “The Queen Is Dead” are among my favorite songs by The Smiths. Likely due for the fact that the music is actually…

Cut the World is modern, jangly, dreamy, twee pop reminiscent of similar-sounding ’80s indie pop bands, particularly The Wake. Seriously! If you like this, listen to Something That No One Else Could Bring, it’s practically the same thing (but better). Though derivative,…

Disc one of March to Fuzz contains a lot of Mudhoney’s fan-favorite songs. For the most part, it’s pretty comprehensive, though there are plenty of fantastic tracks missing, primarily from Superfuzz Bigmuff Plus Early Singles, Mudhoney (self-titled album), and Every…

After years of small EPs, My Bloody Valentine release their first album and come out incredibly strong—if cold as ice.

Lost Tracks and Rare Cuts is an unauthorized collection of My Bloody Valentine (MBV) rarities. Among these are “Sugar,” one of the B-sides to the Only Shallow single and a longer version of the track “Glider” from the Glider EP.…

2/5/2026: Man, I should probably have something written for my favorite album of all time. But hopefully you can empathize with having to write about something you connect to on such a deeply emotional level. Sure, I could go through…

I just want to be the first to call m b v the “indie Chinese Democracy” before Pitchfork says it 10 times in their review. I don’t actually view this as another Chinese Democracy at all, I just wanted to…

Only Shallow is My Bloody Valentine‘s (MBV) sole single release from Loveless, unless you count earlier versions of some album tracks on predating EPs. Slightly baffling when considering the incredibly consistent, high quality of every song on Loveless. Perhaps it’s…

Early My Bloody Valentine’s cheeky noise pop has its appeal. Every track on Sunny Sundae Smile has a nice undercurrent of guitar distortion hinting at the band’s future shoegaze works. Only four-tracks long and clocking in at under 10 minutes,…

The New Record by My Bloody Valentine is a great step forward for the band, who previously performed derivative post-punk that imitated The Birthday Party and The Cramps. On this EP, the band moves a bit closer towards their recognizable…

This Is Your Bloody Valentine is The Doors meeting The Jesus and Mary Chain. Only with all of the impersonation and none of the skills. Dave Conway delivers his faux-Morrison accent over a generic array of half-baked, post-punk songs. There…

Tremolo by My Bloody Valentine (MBV) is the precursor EP to Loveless, and it shows. “To Here Knows When” is the lead track here and is well-known due to its inclusion on Loveless, though this version features a different instrumental…

Souls at Zero is the album where Neurosis, a hardcore punk band on the fringes of post-hardcore, make a complete unexpected dive into the depths of sludge metal. While this is a true black and blue sludge metal album, vocalist…

Pretty good. What Neurosis lose in character with Scott Kelly’s post-hardcore vocals becoming deeper and more in line with traditional sludge metal vocalists, they gain in sound. Through Silver in Blood is their most cohesive and original album yet. True…

This is a good album, though I can’t help but feel disappointed while listening to it. Everyone seems to agree that the most interesting aspect of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is its odd choices of instrumentation that are…

Movement is generally considered to be New Order’s awkward era, of a time when the band didn’t know where to head after Joy Division and instead repeated the sound of their previous band. I find this to be a sizable…

My favorite Nick Cave album, "Tender Prey" rocks the gallows.

Oh, how embarrassing! I mean, to hear one of rock’s all-time greatest vocalists pant and wheeze his way through those rhythm & blues rockers that make up the first disc of this double album. Nick Cave was once a man…

‘Push the Sky Away’ is the rejuvenation Nick Cave has clearly been trying to achieve with albums like ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!.’

Yes, Bryter Layter is overproduced. The horns often eclipse and cover the delicate fine cracks of Nick Drake‘s songs which are his strongest facet and appeal. But they don’t completely cover the great songs underneath, and Bryter Layter at it’s…