Rock
Noah’s Barks pages related to the rock music genre. Combine with other tags for subgenres, e.g. “alternative+rock,” “noise+rock,” and “indie+rock.”
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Preoccupations – “Viet Cong” (2015)
Preoccupations understands the disenfranchised coldness of late ’70s and early ’80s post-punk very well, which proves they’re great listeners. But their unrelenting attachment to it makes their sound inflexible, and the interesting personality quirks that the original, experimental scene brought out aren’t audible in Viet Cong—and that’s the real strength of post-punk. Viet Cong is… (read more)
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Blood Red Shoes – “Box of Secrets”
Box of Secrets by UK band Blood Red Shoes (BRS) actually has a gutsy punch to their sonic assault, immediately putting them above 90% of all their garage rock revival contemporaries. Well, to be fair, while they have the raucous spirit, the better production values probably only did them favors if The Strokes‘ Is This… (read more)
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Swervedriver – “I Wasn’t Born to Lose You” (2015)
Oh, hell yeah. “Autodidact” may be a few miles from reaching a shoegaze classic, but it’s undoubtedly a Swervedriver classic. One track into I Wasn’t Born to Lose You, and we’ve already got another essential song from this once-lost band. Something any fan thought they’d never have again. …But it never gets any easier. I Wasn’t… (read more)
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The Smashing Pumpkins – “Monuments to an Elegy” (2014)
Buh buh buh, time to listen to the new Smashing Pumpkins album, Monuments to an Elegy. I’m a real fan, by the way. To prove it, I think the Machina albums are great alt rock all around, that Adore is actually their greatest, and Zeitgeist had a few great songs. I’m not fuckin’ married to… (read more)
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Sleater-Kinney – “No Cities to Love” (2015)
The induction of post-punk rhythms into Sleater-Kinney’s sound makes ‘No Cities to Love’ a very hoppin’ affair, and something being more dance-y is always better. (read more)
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Foo Fighters Retrospective
(Original publication date unknown) Oh ho, neighboring music nerds. So you want me to apologize for my love of Foo Fighters? Call them a “guilty pleasure?” Say the usual stupid image-preserving apologies like “I like them, but they aren’t objectively good?” Tough luck. Foo Fighters are great. Foo Fighters kick ass. Foo Fighters are possibly… (read more)
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Nirvana Retrospective
It’s not easy making people who aren’t Nirvana fans understand. In fact, I’m inclined to say it’s downright impossible. You have to hear them at just the right time, at just the right moment in life to feel what they’re trying to say in their music. For a comparison, it’s like The Catcher in the… (read more)
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The Jesus and Mary Chain Retrospective
(Original publication date unknown) We all know Psychocandy, the landmark album to introduce writing songs with noise. Yeah, The Velvet Underground were one of the first to use noise feedback in their songs, but they used it in a more abrasive manner, writing songs around the noise, where The Jesus and Mary Chain (JaMC) chose to work… (read more)
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Big Black Retrospective
What’s there to like about a band as repulsive as Big Black? Well, I can think of a few things. (read more)
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Comus Retrospective
(Original publication date unknown) There are few artists as expressive as telling a story as Comus. I wrote a bit about it in my review for First Utterance, particularly for their song “Diana,” but it’s true for their entire library (small as it is). Roger Wootton gets incredibly into the macabre stories he tells, yelping… (read more)