Ever since releasing records entitled I’m Like a Virgin Losing a Child and Everything into Nothing, Manchester Orchestra has staked a claim as sensitively extravagant rockers. With the more mutedly titled, Simple Math, Hull has concocted a collection of simultaneously bombastic and intimate songs tracking the dissolution and reconstruction of his marriage and his life.
Kurt Vile has put together a release worthy of an early candidate for Album of the Year with Smoke Ring For My Halo. By including his touring band, The Violaters, here Vile has upped the sound quality and density, forgoing the low-fi aesthetic that had somewhat muddied his previous albums by giving them a little too much of a DIY-feel.
While Duff McKagan has always appeared far more open to a reunion than the iconoclastic and downright ridiculous Axl Rose, he has soldiered on since their mid 90’s breakup. The modern world of metal has been more than welcoming with his platinum selling work in Velvet Revolver as well as his longtime band, Loaded. Having always played a supporting role in his two other bands, since 1999, Loaded has afforded McKagan the opportunity to step to the fore, showcasing his song writing, guitar playing and singing.
One of the most anticipated albums of 2011 thus far, My Morning Jacket’s Circuital is one of those ever-so-rare instances where inspiration meets expectation.
Deliberately poor production is a badge of honor proudly worn by most indie bands today, with terms like ‘honesty’ and ‘rebellion’ casually thrown about. But Times New Viking, the quaintly-named indie-pop/rock trio from Columbus, Ohio (fondly categorized by some as “shitgaze”), are definitely pushing their luck with their latest release Dancer Equired.
Low’s ninth album C’Mon, released in April on Sub Pop Records, in no way diminishes their catalogue or reduces them from the fantastic slowcore indie band they’ve known to be, but at the same time it never quite reaches its full potential.
Thurston Moore took a lot less time between solo albums (4 years instead of 12) and brought in a high profile producer to help things along this time around. Instead of mining his art/noise rock tendencies Demolished Thoughts plays totally acoustic without a crashing crescendo or drum fill anywhere to be found.
The Felice Brothers were always at their best when they balanced on that thin edge between discord and harmony, raw talent and musical limitation, guitar, accordion, and violin clashing in minor keys over a loose, driving snare, Ian and James’s deadpan vocal phrasing telling stories of souls lost, gunfights, and jilted lovers. Appreciation came from the tension created.
Blues rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa was known to many music fans over the years, but a 2009 sold-out show at London’s Royal Albert Hall – featuring Eric Clapton – definitely put him into another sphere of acclaim. And so it is with Dust Bowl that Bonamassa sounds like a great axe man with a set of pipes that are vintage Paul Rodgers
There’s a bias among many that for something to be artistic, it has to be dark and moody. Poetry is only high art, they reason, if it dwells on the negative aspects of the human experience. For that reason, those who focus on positive vibes are often under appreciated. It is exactly in that positivity, however, that Brett Dennen thrives.
