Posts by Marko Polovina

[rating=8.00] Full of life and daring direction, early signs of Remind Me Tomorrow punch through as an ecstatic, emboldened statement for Sharon van Etten then a natural step forward in her music career. Unusually spirited and lively musicianship is only the dressing when taking in account it still has the same vulnerable aesthetic delivered with […]

[rating=9.00] Slowdive’s true strength, for those who were familiar with their work in the 90’s, was their openness that was understandably morose yet stirring – no doubt due to Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead vocal duality that seemed to pierce through everything and eventually succumb even the most skeptical. While other groups heavily sedated their […]

[rating=7.00]  Wire’s decades-long career has very little stumbling, always opting for a more experimental approach in musicianship to rein in their lyrical moods. What is striking is they’ve been at this for 40 years, yet their takes in simplicity, classical guitar dissonance, or general post-punk aesthetic have yet to fail. 2013’s Change Becomes Us decidedly tells […]

[rating=7.00] The Iceage frontman, Elias Bender Rønnenfelt, has always brought forth a sense of bleakness to his work, so to see his previously envisioned solo project Marching Church in the same vein isn’t surprising. This solo affair evolved into a full-time band with a more traditional shade of post punk with their debut that was […]

On what became a more intimate, small crowd at Ferndale, Michigan’s Loving Touch for a mid-week performance by Cymbals Eat Guitars, allowed a more eloquent and agreeable nature for the band. Clearly, lead singer Joseph D’Agostino was in good spirits, as he was rarely absent with a smile or smirk on his face while looking […]

[rating=7.00] The band was once known as Viet Cong is now Preoccupations due to burgeoning political controversy over their name. The newly named post-punk outfit’s second self-titled record opens with  the familiar murkiness the group beautifully rendered in last year’s Viet Cong then self titled effort. “Anxiety,” which is as the name suggests is burdened […]

Now in its second year in Detroit and in similar fashion, Mo Pop faced a chance of heavy delays on the last day of the festival. The tumultuous forecasted thunderstorms on Sunday only mildly stopped the start of the festivities for a half an hour, luckily hitting earlier than anticipated.  The fest on the riverfront […]

Originally scheduled to play at St. Andrews Hall, a venue change saw Thrice play at Detroit’s Fillmore on June 22nd with excellent opening acts to boot. Gates, who opened and frankly sounded much like latter-day Thrice parallels were able to get a good contrast of sounds with the next act ready to go up. Local […]

[rating=8.00] Almost two years since their stellar and critics favorite To Be Kind was released, Swans’ The Glowing Man has the band changing up the pacing a bit; this is a far less challenging 120 minutes and frankly more inviting than they’ve written in quite some time. The opening 13 minutes of “Cloud of Forgetting” […]

You wouldn’t know it from their appearance, but Bret McKenzie and Jermaine Clement are all about the rock and roll lifestyle. At least they professed that during their Flight of the Conchords performance on June 16th at the historic Detroit Fox Theatre. They are also chronicling their behind the music in a book of their […]

[rating=8.00] To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere isn’t another step into an unknown, instead it becomes more clear it is a more refined piece of Thrice’s discography since the days they released Alchemy Index Vol. I-IV. From then on it was indication of their future intentions – less heavy hardcore and pop tendency and […]

In one of the newer renovated venues in Detroit, the Marble Bar stood firm as Parquet Courts riled up a sold out crowd on Thursday night. Opening the festivities was Soda, whose heavy noise elements and low toned vocals reminded of Bitch Magnet and Pixies intertwined to form some sort of amalgamation of both. The […]

[rating=8.00]  There has always been an overtly punk aura around Parquet Courts’ work despite their ability to weave through the fluxing borders of such a genre. This is perhaps because they carry the same spirit of other, more renown past artists in the 80s. Much of the time they moralize in a far more subtle […]

The saying goes practice what you preach and that is exactly what Savages did below St. Andrews Tuesday night. In the crowded and dense basement haven of the Shelter, the group while sporting their appropriate all black attire, decidedly segued their own spoken-word poetry thematic in their past and present material in rapid succession. Garnering […]

[rating=7.00] RJD2’s career since his bold instrumental hip-hop and heavily sampled debut Dead Ringer and sophomore effort Since We Last Spoke has been on the downhill in terms of genuine creativity of crazed patchwork cuts. His third album, The Third Hand, indicated he had strived for too much and he had lost everything that made […]

[rating=8.00] Pushing through the weighty 4-track Ritual Spirit reminds us why Massive Attack were for the majority of their career innovators in trip-hop. The profoundly pushed the ways they concoct their sound through the years by whatever influences of the time; whether they be the Wild Bunch, the emergence of the underground electronic scene in […]

Inside the dark confines of the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor, Michigan on 1/30/16, Protomartyr managed to fight off the sweltering conditions to perform to a full audience packed wall to wall. Opening the night were two local Michigan bands Deadbeat Beat and Rebel Kind. Deadbeat Beat, a three piece garage/pop punk band with simple […]

[rating=9.00] The rapturous cross of post-punk and noise edginess upon Savages 2013’s Silence Yourself marked one of the strongest records of that year. Leading the charge with lyrical deconstruction of gender politics, equality, and sexual fantasy, it was all bottled beautifully with slow-burners and a tightfisted approach that only ramped up the stakes. The once […]

[rating=7.00] Tortoise begin The Catastrophist auspiciously, much like their long experimental career— introducing us to synth keys that belong in the 8-bit realm medium. It eventually teeters off into normal territory, at least considered for their world. Where their earlier works are more revered because of their playfulness, ambition with an aura of sparseness, The […]

There aren’t many bands that have their lead singer as an opening act, but Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox’s side project Atlas Sound has been doing this all tour. Cox, sporting a yellow raincoat and beige cap fitting for spring on an unusually warm night at Detroit’s Majestic Theatre on December 12th,  has a reputation of being […]