Album Reviews

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Push the Sky Away

After a good decade embedded in electric brimstone both with the Seeds on such masterpieces as Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus and Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! as well as the pair of aces conjured with his short-lived blues-punk outfit Grinderman, the Australian modern rock icon returns to the tender subtlety of 2003's Nocturama or, better yet, 1997's brilliant The Boatman's Call as songs like opening track "We No Who U R", "Water's Edge" and "We Real Cool" testify.

Read More

Puscifer: Donkey Punch The Night EP

Puscifer’s Donkey Punch The Night offers a few unique tunes and a cover worth listening to once, but as a whole, the EP is the most lacking studio product Maynard James Keenan has put out in recent memory.

Read More

Billy Bragg: Tooth and Nail

Billy Bragg calls this latest set the follow-up to Mermaid Avenue he never made, and he’s right: a single listen confirms Tooth & Nail tops anything he’s recorded since those 1997 sessions with Wilco, which drew from Woody Guthrie’s poetry archive and yielded 47 songs and a trio of exceptional albums. The difference this time lies in the words, which belong to Bragg and not Woody, though his spirit turns up in a cover of “I Ain’t Got No Home” from Tooth & Nail, interpreted in the way only Bragg has mastered.

Read More

They Might Be Giants: Nanobots

Listening to a They Might Be Giants album can be a bit like homework. That's probably not what the two Johns (Linnell and Flansburgh, respectively) envisioned when they started the band over thirty years ago. By now though, as the duo have released their 16th studio album, Nanobots, there's no denying that it takes some work to fully appreciate this band.

Read More

Eric Clapton: Old Sock

Eric Clapton has spent the better part of his solo career populating his albums with the material written by composers he admires. It would be safe thinking Clapton would devote the debut recording on his own label with a clutch of self-penned tunes, however on Old Sock, Slowhand continues in the vein of standards he mined on its predecessor Clapton.

Read More

Skiggy Rapz: Satellites

Satellites, Skiggy Rapz’s newest album, showcases the 29 year-old’s fast-paced flow and intriguing and inspirational lyricism. The album, although classified as R&B, came off with a definite frat-rap feel, perfect from the upcoming summer months. Tracks like “Follow”, which features jazzy background instruments, and “Put It On”, which sounds remarkably similar to Macklemore, are fit to be played on a beach with a Corona in hand and neon bathing suits parading around.

Read More

Low: The Invisible Way

When you have a genuine rock icon like Robert Plant not only taking a shine to you but covering two of your songs and making them infinitely better than your originals, perhaps its a non-verbal cue to completely step up your game. This is the conundrum faced by Duluth, Minnesota slow-core greats Low upon entering the creative process for their latest LP, The Invisible Way

Read More

Telekinesis: Dormarion

Dormarion sounding like that of “a man figuring out exactly who he is” is not exactly a good thing. Given the variety of the songs, the record lacks cohesion, which translates to an often frustrating listening experience. The bright side, of course, is that Lerner is still young and early enough on in his career to one day truly discover himself and reach his full potential.

Read More

Screaming Females: Chalk Tape EP

Maybe the most impressive thing about Screaming Females – besides leading lady Marissa Paternoster's well-documented shredding chops – is the consistency of the group's output. Since lunging out of New Brunswick, New Jersey's sweaty-basement party scene in 2006, the trio has released five full-length studio albums, not a clunker among them. On Chalk Tape, their second studio EP, the Females continue to solidify their reputation for delivering wickedly efficient DIY rock

Read More

Mount Moriah: Miracle Temple

Their relative youth, occupancy on the eminent Merge Records roster, and previous involvement in punkish outfits, they are also critically alluded as country music for the cool crowd, a band that even the bearded and cynical can get behind and support.

Read More

View posts by year

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter