Archive for the ‘CLASSIC ALBUMS’ Category

ADRIANNE LENKER – ” Hours Were The Birds ” (2018 reissue)

Posted: January 7, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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With the release of breakthrough albums “Masterpiece” and “Capacity”, Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker has established hers as one of the most powerful voices in music.

Thanks to ongoing ascent of Big Thief, singer-songwriter Adrianne Lenker has become one of the most praised indie folk artists of the last five years.” while her output with Big Thief is what brought her music to the attention of most who hold her in such high regard, masterpiece is not the beginning of the story. “my first solo record i made was Hours Were the Birds,” Lenker explains. “I moved to New York and, starting from complete scratch, had nothing to show anybody that was representing what i did, other than stuff i made when i was 13. so, I decided I should record a solo album of my songs that i had been accumulating.”

in 2013 Lenker returned to her hometown of Minneapolis and entered terrarium studios with producer Rob Oesterlin, where she laid down ten songs on acoustic guitar. “it’s basically just like a live solo show,” Lenker describes, “but with an added twist.” she then enlisted nyc friend Andrew Sarlo to mix the album (he would later produce and mix Masterpiece and engineer, produce and mix capacity), and on January 24th, 2014 Hours Were the Birds was released into the world. drenched in beautiful imagery and intimate stories, it is the work of a woman on a journey, conquering new territory with bravery and honesty.

Adrianne Lenker – Disappear from the album Hours Were the Birds Saddle Creek Records

OSO OSO – ” Basking In The Glow “

Posted: January 7, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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“Laying in the grass, we were dragging on loud/Got my hand in your hand and my head in the clouds.”

This is the scene, set with acoustic atmospherics and frontman Jade Lilitri’s familiar, layered, honey-sweet-but-burnt-around-the-edges vocals, that flickers to life at the start of Oso Oso’s new full-length, “Basking in the Glow”. The track, simply called “intro,” is just that: an intimate, humble, and hopeful prologue that prefaces a record radically committed to letting the light in—because Lilitri knows the darkness like the back of his hand.

The spacious opening proposition of “intro” gives way to “the view,” an electric, invigorating indie rock banger that showcases Lilitri’s slick, effortless melodic excellence and lyrical precision (“I’ll grow, we’ll see/There’s something good in me”). The title track follows, driving home the record’s thesis on a chorus like a roman candle cracking a mid-July night sky: “These days, it feels like all I know is this phase/I hope I’m basking in the glow of something bigger I don’t know.”

Oso Oso mastermind Jade Lilitri sings of digging for clarity but can’t see the light for the dirt beneath his fingernails. Basking In The Glow is an album with all the right answers — an album about how great it feels to have those answers — but with the understanding that knowledge doesn’t necessarily translate into action. As Lilitri sings it, there’s always another angle to question, whether a step forward is a step in the right direction at all. In the grand tradition of forebears like Taking Back Sunday, the Used, and Jimmy Eat World, he quells his doubts by affixing them to airlocked guitars and rocketship choruses, and then launching them into the sun.

Released August 16th, 2019

Jade Lilitiri – vocals, guitars & bass
Aaron Masih – drums

HASH REDACTOR – ” Drecksound “

Posted: January 4, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Hash Redactor is a four-piece from Memphis that has roots in Ex-Cult and Nots, but on their full-length debut “Drecksound” there is a little bit more freedom and room to breath than those bands previous works. Drecksound features some fantastic bass work from Meredith Lones that powers many of the tracks through a strong bottom end or elastic and bouncing runs interspersing crisp distortion laced guitar work.  Though grounded in familiar post-punk structures Hash Redactor breathe and flow as one and mix chaotic energy with a studied yet free aesthetic that refuses to be contained.

Hash Redactor truly shine in some of the less compact tracks that allow the band to stretch out a little and feature some fantastic rhythmic interplay laying the groundwork for Alec McIntyre’s reverb drenched vocals.  “In the Tank” is a perfect example of how the band manipulates space to fantastic effect as Lones’ bass slides and dives around alternating blasts of distortion and well placed relatively clean guitar leads. The contrasts the band mixes in create an extremely interesting soundscape that is made even more effective by McIntyre’s gravelly croak. “Floral Pattern” is a loping exercise where Lones’ bass is pushed to the fore bouncing out a playful and incessant melody that the drums of Charlotte Watson weave in and out of exceptionally well as the guitars throw out distortion to bring another layer of noise.

Drecksound is also full of intense and tightly coiled punk bursts that recall some of the finer moments of the member’s other projects that will lend a sense of familiarity to the record. “Open Invite” is a ferocious burst of energy and drive that has some fantastic rapid-fire drum fills. There is a bit of an early Big Black/Touch and Go feel with Lones firing off well placed runs that intertwine with Watson’s fills that speaks to a fantastic musical connection. “Down the Tubes” features some screaming guitar work blanketing McIntyre’s forceful howl that is a blast of very controlled impressive chaos.

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Hash Redactor have managed to find a balance between ferocious burst of punk energy and the ability to expand and play off each other in entertaining fashion. Drecksound manages to vary its musical approaches so things never get tiresome or overworked which creates a welcoming atmosphere that is greatly appreciated. McIntyre and company manage to add some more space and spontaneity than fans of their other projects may be accustomed to but lose none of the ferocity and energy in their performances.

This LP is a welcome entry into the catalogue of Goner Records and it’s fierce yet playful pummeling record that serves as a great introduction to a relative newcomer to the Memphis music scene.

PARCELS – ” Tieduprightnow “

Posted: January 2, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Yet another Australian band that made one of the year’s finest records. Though Parcels have since relocated to Germany, they got their start in the same continent that’s supplied us with some of 2018’s best music. But while fellow Aussies like Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and Hatchie lean more indie rock, Parcels are an entirely different animal: Parcels is the long-awaited dance party from the funk-friendly quintet of Daft Punk protégés, proof that disco isn’t dead and never was. Their debut is tremendous fun, and it truly doesn’t sound like anything else happening in music today. That’s a huge accomplishment in itself, considering the broken dam of music constantly rushing our way through channels both digital and natural. Parcels feels miraculously out-of-place, conjuring ghosts of music movements past. But, with its perpetuation of millennial angst and ability to offer release through dance, it does so in a way that feels both necessary and relevant to our present day. Parcels aren’t the only Aussies making musical waves right now, but who else is bringing this much funk to the table? No one. “And that brings to the end of what we hope has been a beautiful trip for you and yours,” Dean Dawson sings in the album’s flight-inspired credits.

Daft Punk-approved dance-rock from Australia via Berlin, Parcels make blissed-out tunes for a life of sunshine, cocktails, discoballs and hijinks. Creating what should certainly be one of the year’s most enduring debuts, five slick-but-cheeky surf dudes arrived in style with collection of playful but considered poolside pop. It’s got a magpie approach to the music of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘Random Access Memories’ by their robot friends, but feels fresh, vital, and completely human.

HIPPO CAMPUS – ” Simple Season “

Posted: January 1, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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After a short run of shows in Europe this year, Hippo Campus returned in October 2017 to take in more dates in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France, the recent debut album landmark is now released!

Have you ever had one of those moments when listening to an album where you think, “This might not be aimed at me — hell, it’s probably aimed a few miles away from me,” but it connects regardless? Bambi is one of those albums. Hippo Campus have been a bit of a mystery.  After selling records at Bonnaroo and having their title be the most coveted on all three days , I couldn’t wrap my head around what type of band they were and how they were able to captivate their audience.

Let’s not beat around the bush here, they make pop music — but they make pop music that’s just the right amount of nostalgic while staying deeply rooted in futurism. Bambi is a genuine risk that, admittedly, may have attributed to why this album flew so far under the radar. Regardless, this record is a bold and genuinely enjoyable move by a young band exploring every possible avenue.

The GOON SAX – ” We’re Not Talking We’re Not Talking ” Best Albums Of 2018

Posted: January 1, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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A band of 19-year-olds from Australia who have a knack for incredibly thoughtful and structured indie pop, the Goon Sax’s second album is a tremendous reflection of the leaps and bounds the band has taken over its short life. They fall very easily into the grand tradition of Australian and New Zealand indie bands without batting an eye, which is both to be expected considering member Louis Forster is the son of Robert Forster of the Go-Betweens, but also a bit of a surprise since his reported musical awakening was not his dad’s band, but Green Day’s American Idiot. “We Can’t Win” is the album’s understated masterpiece, something that both evokes and transcends its teenage story and authors, much like the album as a whole.

Named after Australian bagged wine, the Goon Sax travel in teenage ennui, that era of your life where the possibilities are endless and your ability to do anything — or even know which movie to watch — feels infinitesimal. Their sophomore album, We’re Not Talking is full of e•mo•tion and teenage malaise, and “Make Time 4 Life” might be the band’s masterpiece so far: It’s a song full of tiny moments of young love, both flourishing and dissipating. This was the best album to overthink your life to this year.

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Band Members
James Harrison, Louis Forster, Riley Jones

LUCA BRASI – ” Stay “

Posted: December 29, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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A standout from the Tasmanians’ fourth album, “Never Better” is a reflection on facades and brave faces. If we’re ever asked if we’re okay, all of us have used the titular phrase as means of reassurance. Here, vocalist Tyler Richardson removes the veneer and draws in listeners with some of his most brutal, honest lyrics: “Every effort feels so tired and rehearsed,” he laments at one point; “I’m coming apart at the seams,” he confesses at another. His bandmates drawback and venture into more restrained, twinkly musical territory to ensure these words are crystal clear. Songs like “Never Better” matter.

If preceding LP’s Extended Family and By A Thread sound like a young band experimenting excitingly with the elements of punkrock, If This Is All We’re Going To Be sees the band nail their unique, cracking formula. They’ve perfectly married melody, their trademark meandering guitar lines and self-examining lyrical content with the foundational punk and rock ideals that inspired the band. 

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The BLINDERS – ” Columbia “

Posted: December 29, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Nasty Man Creations presents The Blinders Columbia. Doncaster bred and Manchester based, The Blinders are Thomas Haywood (guitar, vocals, word), Charlie McGough (bass guitar), Matthew Neale (drums, backing vocals). Influenced as much by the daily news as music, their impact, even at this early stage, cannot be over stated. The trio met at school and were originally inspired by local heroes Arctic Monkeys, though for Columbia, which was produced by Gavin Monaghan at Magic Garden Studios in Wolverhampton, they draw on influences as diverse as The Smiths, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds and Kanye West. Columbia is bracingly thrilling debut which firmly places The Blinders at the vanguard of a new generation of politically engaged British guitar bands. Loosely based around the concept of Columbia as “an alternate world informed by reality”, on the album The Blinders display a ferocious intelligence, as influenced by history, literature and art as they are by Britain’s current political and economic woes.

Thomas sat down for an acoustic rendition of I Can’t Breathe Blues featured on our forthcoming LP.

Brave New World (acoustic)

Thomas sat down for an acoustic rendition of Rat In A Cage featured on our forthcoming LP.

The Blinders released their highly-anticipated debut album, Columbia, earlier this year via Modern Sky. Originally from Doncaster, this now Manchester-based trio takes lyrical inspiration from dystopian science fiction, beat poets, modern-day political turmoil and societal outcasts while echoing the doomy musical mannerisms of Nick Cave and the sinister desert rock of Humbug-era Arctic Monkeys. One of their earliest tracks “ICB Blues” commemorates the brutal killing of Eric Garner by police while “Brave New World” pays homage to the Huxley novel of the same name and pokes fun at Trump’s ludicrous border-wall proposal. Frontman Tom Heywood’s clever, offbeat growls position him as prophetic town crier while vigorous guitars circle around him like a pack of hungry wolves. Columbia is what you get when a young rock band grows up on Bob Dylan, but decides to make something saltier and with an added pinch of danger.

PREOCCUPATIONS – ” New Material ” Best Albums Of 2018

Posted: December 28, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Preoccupations kick things off on a decidedly ‘80s note with “Espionage,” the synths, skeletal beat, and Matt Flegel’s dramatic vocals sounding like a twisted, bleaker version of Depeche Mode. It’s dark and grinding, but still so danceable it could be an alternate soundtrack the scene in The Breakfast Club where they’re all gettin’ down cue Judd Nelson hanging off of that weird hand statue thing. On “Decompose,” the unrelenting, singular beat from Mike Wallace’s drums and the solitary, swiped chord of some kind of eastern harp are softened by Flegel’s pointedly dreamy vocals, the only relief from the cyclical, driving rhythm getting beaten in to your skull. Sonically, “Disarray” takes a nod or two from the “Disorder” version of Joy Division. Lyrically, it’s a study in harnessing the chaos and discord of life, while acknowledging the futility of doing so. Flegel sings the title over and over, making a pattern of a word whose definition means exactly the opposite.

The members of Preoccupations have always confidently followed their own rules as they straddle the line between humanity and the brutish force of their music. Examinations of creation, destruction and the ways that we often practice the two in vain have regularly been tethered to the Canadian post-punk band’s work—even going back to their days as Viet Cong. And while that’s quite a downcast undertaking, it’s one that goes hand-in-hand with Preoccupations’ dystopian-future-sounding music. With their third LP, New Material, they dive into it headlong, kicking things off on a decidedly ’80s note with “Espionage,” the synths, skeletal beat, and Flegel’s dramatic vocals sounding like a twisted, bleaker version of Depeche Mode. It’s dark and grinding, but still so danceable it could be an alternate soundtrack the scene in The Breakfast Club where they’re all gettin’ down—cue Judd Nelson hanging off of that weird hand-statue thing.

Preoccupations – “Espionage” from ‘New Material’, out March 23rd, 2018 on Jagjaguwar Records.

LALA LALA – ” Destroyer “

Posted: December 28, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Chicago singer/songwriter Lillie West records as Lala Lala and she’s set to release the follow-up to 2016’s Sleepyhead. Her forthcoming Hardly Art LP, The Lamb, is a stark indie-rock record, informed by a difficult time period of West’s life, which consisted of “home invasion, deaths of loved ones and general violence.” As the album hops between lo-fi pop and scuzzy rock, West’s musings are nuanced and naked in their emotional outpouring. People react to early adulthood in vastly different ways and as West found herself intermingling with addiction and toxic people, she sought rejuvenation through sobriety and these new songs. “Destroyer” sees West trying to finally get passed previous hardship and “Water Over Sex” sees West grappling with her newfound more positive lifestyle. She’s a compelling, relatable narrator, someone who’s in her own head, but takes you on a journey through her clever mind and candid, unglamorous life experiences.

Can an album simultaneously charm and devastate? In the case of Lillie West and her solo project Lala Lala‘s sophomore album, The Lamb, the answer is an emphatic yes.

The record is a multi-dimensional exploration of both the human spirit and music that aims to crush souls. The quiet yet emotionally powerful grunge ballad “Moth” is pure escapism sonically and in its message. Beautifully knee-buckling, “Dove” is the feeling of plunging into the great blue sea. This landscape, however, is drowned with the tears of sorrow and pain, as West says goodbye to someone she dearly loved. On the chiming, dark rocker, “Destroyer”, West is brutally honest. She proclaims without hesitation, “You are the reason my heart broke behind my back”. Beyond the chorus, however, she also explains the many times she was almost her own destroyer. It’s a frightening yet honest revelation from the young artist.

The Lamb is also gorgeously widescreen, such as on the stirring and breathtaking “Dropout”. It is fantasy meeting reality, as West’s asks out loud, “Can you keep a secret? This is not the only one”. The dazzling and breathtaking approach of “Water Over Sex” uncovers the lies West tells herself to protect what she has. As she reveals, “I love my secrets, I’m lucky in making”. Vulnerability strikes on gritty “I Get Cut”, which summarizes the multiple events that have affected West’s life over the past two years.

Despite the trials and tribulations of her not-so-distant past, West still found a way to make them beautiful and stunning. Through her own perseverance, we understand that the human spirit is stronger than one can imagine. We understand that even a lamb can quietly roar.

The Lamb is out now via Hardly Art.

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