Posts by Mac Lockett

When Sharon Van Etten’s second album, epic dropped in 2010, only a year after her debut, the response was surprisingly muted. Although critics noted the strength of its lyricism, composition and delivery most held back from praising the album as the masterpiece it was. Even now, with five records under her belt epic remains a […]

Nick Waterhouse has built his career on being a man out of time, shepherding his audience through the sweaty backrooms of New Orleans bars and the vibrancy of Chicago speakeasies. For four albums he has used his quasi neo-soul/Dr. John worship to develop his own pedigree, contributing LPs that could be inconsistent but always remained […]

Peter Silberman, the man behind beloved indie outfit The Antlers, has built his career on grand, conceptual catharsis. Every album in The Antlers oeuvre, especially their undeniable apex, 2009s Hospice, builds its theatrics on Silberman’s emotive persona. Combining anguish and euphoria in his lyricism with an equally timid and incensed delivery, the singer is often […]

Teenage Fanclub, the beloved Scottish band, is by all accounts, a legacy group. They may not be heralded as the influential and extremely consistent band they are, but their ability to routinely tour and release new albums is a direct result of their aging fan-base and the nostalgia and lingering pedigree of their early discography. […]

Back in 2019, slowthai performed his Mercury Prize performance while holding the severed head of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a move that worked to invigorate his supporters and further surround the young rapper in controversy. A stunt like that perfectly sums up the tone of slowthai’s debut, Nothing Great About Britain – confrontational, dynamic, […]

Big Thief has only been around for five years or so, but in that short time frontwoman, Adrianne Lenker has built the band into one of the most consistently astonishing groups playing today while simultaneously dividing her time between maintaining an almost equally great solo career. Her bandmate and ex-husband Buck Meek, often offers backing […]

Twenty years ago, The Avalanches released their near-perfect debut, Since I Left You. A groundbreaking entry in sampling and plunderphonics, the album was heralded by fans and critics as an immediate classic. But the Melbourne group, content only with perfection, spent over 11 years working on a follow-up and after lineup changes and more sample […]

It’s been seven years since Sigur Rós’ last studio album, Kveikur, and in that time the band has remained notoriously quiet. While it seemed unlikely that any of the group’s members would be producing any music amongst the worldwide lockdown, we still managed to get a new album from lead singer and guitarist Jónsi Birgisson and something […]

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have released a new album. That already sounds like a tired statement; any article written about one of their new releases over the last few years can seem almost instantly stale. To be fair, most of their albums have at the very least has been good and a lot […]

Lambchop have been around for three decades, enough time for the group to shed and pick-up a few members but apparently not enough to yield any real missteps. In fact, the group is remarkably consistent, creating the kind of following that allows its listeners to squabble over which albums are the best without any definitive […]

Adianne Lenker has become one of the most prolific singer-songwriters today, not in the sense of sheer volume, as is the case with someone like John Dwyer or Ty Segall, but in her ability to release at least one album per year of almost unparalleled beauty and grace. Aside from her four stellar albums with […]

The members of Yo La Tengo are no strangers to covers. Whether it’s their three cover albums, Fakebook, Fuckbook and Stuff Like That There, their fundraising efforts for WFMU in New Jersey, or their extensive live repertoire, the band has proven prolific in their effortless mimicry. Now, that would be a great party trick for […]

Ten years ago Jónsi, Sigur Rós’ distinctive frontman, released his debut solo album Go. Hotly anticipated at the time, it served to expose the post-rock luminary to a wider audience, and for the most part, was pretty successful.  Now, with the help of in-demand producer A.G. Cook, Jónsi is tapping into a very different kind of […]

Yves Jarvis, the moniker for Canadian musician Jean-Sébastien Audet has already been attached to two stellar albums going into 2020. Now, Jarvis is set to release his third album under that name, Sundry Rock Song Stock. Unlike last year’s, The Same But By Different Means and 2017’s Good Will Come to You Jarvis’ new album […]

With a band as prolific as Thee Oh Sees, every new release can seem cumbersome. Since 2003, the band has released nearly 25 albums and gone through several different name changes: OCS, The Oh Sees, Thee Oh Sees, and now Osees. In all that time, the one constant behind the group has been John Dwyer, […]

For better or worse, Grant-Lee Phillips‘ solo career has been heavily defined by a certain brand of easy going acoustic singer-songwriterisms. As predictably as those embracing his band, the more biting Grant Lee Buffalo, in the 90’s – eventually grew older and embraced the Wilcos and Nationals in their middle age, so too did Phillips […]

Last week in an almost entirely empty H&M in downtown Chicago,, a few teenagers milled about the section marked SALE, perusing inexpensive chic clothes marketed directly at them. Over the speakers, sandwiched between The Weeknd and a certain Tik Tok song, played Widowspeak’s “Even True Love”. That single, the most recent from Widowspeak’s fifth album […]

When No Joy’s debut Ghost Blonde came out in 2010, the band was instantly championed as a welcome addition to the nu -gaze movement. On that album, No Joy was able to manage the tricky balancing act of treating their wailing guitars to the point that they came out hushed and ethereal. While charming, the […]

Cover albums tend to be a product of a foundering career. At a point when critical appraisal has dried up and popularity is about to follow, musicians can count on releasing a few covers to bide their time and prolong the inevitable. Even in the best-case scenarios, when more successful artists employ an album of […]