Posts by Mac Lockett

In a new weekly roundup, Glide drops caustic commentary on selected tracks from release day Friday Toro y Moi – “Days in Love” Chaz Bear will probably never reach the heights of his first three albums again, he’s realized he doesn’t need to. As long as he keeps brandishing himself on the covers of these […]

Since its 2012 release, Melody Prochet’s self-titled debut album as Melody’s Echo Chamber has quietly become a modern classic. This is partly due to producer Kevin Parker’s ascendence to the main stage with Lonerism’s release that same year, but (aside from the music itself) due in large part to the mystery behind Prochet’s development. While […]

In a new weekly roundup, Glide drops caustic commentary on selected tracks from release day Friday. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – “Presumptuous” How it took this long for KGLW to release a double album is beyond me, although their self-titled compatriots from 2020 and 2021 come pretty close. Regardless, this genre-jumping collection of […]

Kurt Vile – “Mount Airy Hill (Way Gone)” 2018’s Bottle It In sounded like an album recorded on tour, a stop-gap which, like the Courtney Barnett collab Lotta Sea Lice, helped quell anticipation and lighten the tension of a follow-up to Kurt Vile’s surprise success on B’lieve I’m Goin Down. (Watch My Moves) is only […]

In a new weekly roundup, Glide drops caustic commentary on selected tracks from release day Friday. Orville Peck – “The Curse of the Blackened Eye” Peck’s twist on alt-county doesn’t seem to appeal to fans of country or alt-country, but rather to an entirely new demographic. Bronco doesn’t do much to win over the pop-country […]

Around the time Grizzly Bear released Shields, their oft-overlooked follow-up to Veckatimest, Daniel Rossen self-produced an even more overlooked EP of extras. Silent Hour/Golden Mile is a strong little collection of songs and acts as a great counterweight to Shields’ grandiosity – probably even better than the B-Side mini-album the band put out at the […]

In a new weekly roundup, Glide drops caustic commentary on selected tracks from release day Friday. Aldous Harding – “Leathery Whip” Probably the simplest song on her new album, but that’s never been a problem for Harding. Besides, her duet with Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson can hold its own with all the other “voices” on […]

For an artist as idiosyncratic as Aldous Harding, it seems like a miracle that 2019’s Designer presented her sound as well as it did. A record like that can find the perfect balance between approachable and eccentric, and for many serves as a perfect entry point. Following it would be difficult, a complete rehash would […]

In a new weekly roundup, Glide drops caustic commentary on selected tracks from release day Friday. Alex Cameron – “Hold the Line” Cameron uses the same tricks on each album, he comes up with an infectious and heavily burrowing earworm, and then uses it to embody some kind of skeezy, oft-kilter anti-hero and sell you […]

Whether it be a struggling lounge-lizard, a kind of provocateur incel, or the benefits of stigmatized excess, Alex Cameron has found a way on each of his albums to satirize just about everyone on the fringe of society. In that sense, Oxy Music follows along the same lines, this time tracing one of those men […]

In a new weekly roundup, Glide drops caustic commentary on selected tracks from release day Friday. Guided By Voices – “Mad River Man” Ever since Robert Pollard started fleshing out his songs past the two-minute mark, his releases with GBV have become more and more scattershot. That’s probably an exaggeration. Although none of his later-career […]

Last year, The Weather Station’s Ignorance seemingly came out of nowhere, often as great albums do, to plow its way into countless year-end lists. Tamara Lindeman’s opus was written in 2018, during a particularly creative time that, also like many other great albums, yielded a whole lot of extra material. Sometimes situations like this simply […]

In a new weekly roundup, Glide drops caustic commentary on selected tracks from release day Friday. Superchunk – “On The Floor” Surprisingly, the best song of the week also came from the best album of the week. Even more surprising was that that song/album came from Superchunk, a band that’s been landing on lists like […]

There are plenty of comparisons to be made between Jason Pierce’s last album 2018’s And Nothing Hurt and this year’s Everything Was Beautiful, beyond just the reverse Vonnegut quote. For one thing, And Nothing sounded distinctly simple when it was released, owing little to its sweeping, almost psychedelic predecessor, Sweet Heart Sweet Light. That made […]

In this new weekly roundup, Glide drops caustic commentary on selected tracks from release day Friday. Lavender Country – “Lament of a Wyoming Housewife” Lavender Country’s lone album, 1973’s self-titled, is not the lost classic its fans would have you believe. Instead, it’s a messy but interesting trailblazer, an album that’s more important than it […]

As Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally inch closer to Beach House’s twentieth year as a band, it gets harder and harder to expect as much from them. Not because of any foreseeable diminishing quality, but because of the sheer audacity of the run they’ve already had. Beach House’s first two albums, their self-titled and Devotion, […]

In a new weekly roundup, Glide drops caustic commentary on selected tracks from release day Friday. Spoon – “Lucifer on the Sofa” Spoon tried to record Lucifer on the Sofa (the album) seven different times before the pandemic hit Texas, and then many more times after that. The band has never had a break in […]

Spoon is possibly the most consistent band of the last 30 years. They’ve released ten albums since 1996, with only 2010’s Transference registering as anything close to a dip. Their greatest albums, A Series of Sneaks, Kill the Moonlight, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and They Want My Soul are spread out evenly amongst their […]

In a new weekly roundup, Glide drops caustic commentary on selected tracks from release day Friday. Erin Rae – “California Belongs to You” Leave it to two El Lay rats like Erin Rae and Jonathan Wilson to release yet another song about California, but in their defense, it’s the best one here. Rae’s newest album […]

Cate Le Bon’s last album, 2019’s Reward, was one of that year’s best. It found a way, as each of her albums does, to build on the pattern and formula that preceded it while embracing a different aspect of Le Bon, or at least the woman she was at the time of recording. Long gone […]