Artist: Twilight Sad
Title: No One Can Ever Know
Label: Fat Cat
Genre : Rock
Richter Magnitude Rating Scale: Strong
Review: Analog Synths! Programmed Drums! It's the late '70s meets the '80s meets '90s! They are still very Scottish, moody (emotive) but channeled through a whole new filter; less noisy but no less dramatic. Now a trio on their third album, they are Suicide 2.0 while still managing to stay true to their Arab Strap heart on the sleeve doom and gloomery. (That's a word, right?) Perfectly under-produced by Andrew Weatherall, I give this a solid B+. Next time when I am in the mood for Fad Gadget or Cabaret Voltaire, I am grabbing this instead.
Recommended tracks: 6,1, 8, 3, 4 ,5
Artist:
La Sera
Title:
Sees the Light
Label:
Hardly Art
Genre:
Rock
Richter Magnitude Rating Scale: Minor.2
Review:
Let's agree to disagree. If you are like everyone else out there in
the music critic world, you probably found this record to be a
delightful, pleasant Pop romp but I find this 30 minutes of music to
be annoyingly average and all rather sound-a-likey. Katy Goodman who
exited the Vivian Girls a few years ago has moved just slightly away from her
garage rock Wipers meets '60 girl group concept and moved into
soundtrack work for romcoms and shampoo commercials. Rather than
carry the expressive power of Blondie, these songs are compressed
into flatined BLAHndie.
Recommended
tracks: 3,9, 4, 2, 6 (since I have to pick some for on air play)
Artist:
Breton
Title:
Other People's Problems
Label:
Fat Cat
Genre: Electronic / Rock
Richter Magnitude Rating Scale: Moderate to Strong
Review:
So what does a bunch of UK filmmakers gone musicians named after the
father of the surrealist movement Andre Breton sound like?
Apocalyptic glitch-hop party music where some of the crew has taken
some brown acid so it doesn't exactly sound like a good time. It
sounds paranoid, disjointed and at their more commercial moments,
like The Streets. With three well received EPs under their belt from
the label that brought us James Blake, there are several moments of
greatness (see reco tracks for the hits) and luckily those aren't diluted by the
misses of which there are a few of as well.
Recommended
tracks: 3, 5, 7, 8, 10
Artist:
Feedtime
Title:
Sampler
Label:
Sub Pop
Genre:
Rock / Blues
Richter Magnitude Rating Scale: Moderate for me, Strong to the Northwest
Review:
For those looking where bands like Mudhoney (and so many other early
Sup Poppers) get their primal raw chainsaw slide guitar sound from,
look no further. This '80s noisy Australian trio churns out rock that
is rooted in Blues but sounds more like Birthday Party or Flipper.
Barely melodic, file under heavy uneasy listening that Sub Pop is
reissuing to give a whole new life. Makes sense as this will appeal
to those who appreciated the bands who helped put Sub Pop on the map
as well as followers of Amphetamine Reptile Records or that Chicago
chunky bass sound ALA Shellac.
Recommended
tracks: 6,1, 4, 7, 9 (straight up blues)