ALBUM REVIEW: ENVY “all the footprints you’ve ever left and the fear of expecting ahead”

November 7, 2008 – 9:59 am by Hunter Busch

Sonic Quality: ***
Album Proper: ***

Settle in, kids, and I’ll tell you a story…the story of Envy and their record All the Footprints You’ve Ever Left and the Fear Expecting Ahead.

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It was a dark and stormy night (well, it was night anyway) and three mad music-scientists were gathered in the moodily lit music library, sipping ale. A pleasant yet acrid smoke filled the air as they began their inspection of the latest specimen:

Dwight: “What’s this one?”
Me: “Its that Hardcore/Screamo band.”
Pony-Boy: “Cool.”

 

The record was put on and the sleeve passed around to allow a cursory glance at the album art and track titles. The music began; mellifluous, tense, with a driving backbeat that implied a forthcoming break in the musical levee. Envy, instead, defies expectation and instead delivers a ten second silence…
..
.
Then the levee breaks unleashing stomping rhythms, crashing cymbals, distorted screamed vocals and epic guitars.

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ALBUM REVIEW: EVANGELICALS, “The Evening Descends”

October 29, 2008 – 9:49 am by Hunter Busch

 

EVANGELICALS – The Evening Descends

(2008, Dead Oceans)

Sonic Quality: *****

Album Proper: *****

Mitch Hedberg once said: “Dreaming is work. One minute I’m sleeping and the next thing you know, I have to build a go-cart with my ex-landlord.”

Trying to write about this record is a bit like deconstructing a particularly dense dream the following morning. You can remember pieces; images, sounds, bits of things said but what really stays with you in the light of day is the way it made you feel. This record feels great. After just one listen, you’ll find yourself bouncing through town humming half-recalled melodies and grinning ecstatically. Read the rest of this entry »

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ALBUM REVIEW: R.E.M. “Accelerate”

October 29, 2008 – 9:38 am by Andy Smith

R.E.M.
“Accelerate”
(Warner Brothers, 2008)

Music: ****
Sound: ****1/2

by, Andy Smith

Back in 1983, did anyone think that we’d still be talking about R.E.M. 25 years later? Sure enough the band that basically defined what used to be called “college music” is still at it, and after a series of less-than-inspiring records (am I the only one who dug the offbeat Up!), Accelerate is a return to form in a big way. Lean and taut with 11 songs clicking in at under 35 minutes, Accelerate is a blast of raging guitars and energy with less of the subdued R.E.M. we have come to expect from their records since, well, always. But if you have seen the band live even in recent years, there’s no doubt that they prefer to let it rip, and the pairing with U2/Snow Patrol/Hives/Bloc Party producer Jacknife Lee is a successful one as Lee gives the band his trademark massive wall of rock sound. Read the rest of this entry »

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RMAF … Back and Recovering

October 20, 2008 – 11:15 am by Chris Sommovigo

After spending a week in Denver preparing for, executing, packing up, and returning from Rocky Mountain Audio Fest - then returning home to Atlanta to stare down several hundred emails demanding my attention - I’m finally recovering. Mostly. Read the rest of this entry »

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ALBUM REVIEW: The Felice Brothers, “The Felice Brothers”

October 6, 2008 – 11:52 am by Hunter Busch

 

 

 

 

 

“The Felice Brothers”

(2008, Team Love)

 

Music: ****

Sound: ***** (and ½)

 

Music, and the musicians who make it, have always drawn on what has come before. They’ve taken the music preferred by parents, or siblings or friends or what have you, named them influences, and made them their own. Mostly though, this seems like an act. A carefully chosen pose. A popular disguise. Rarely can a musician make it seem utterly genuine. Not only can the Felice Brothers accomplish this feat, and do so effortlessly, but so completely that if I didn’t know better I’d swear this record came out of a time capsule from 1975. This self-titled record recalls Bob Dylan and The Band circa ‘The Basement Tapes’ at almost every turn, and you’re free to feel however you’d like about that. I, personally, think its pretty swell.

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ALBUM REVIEW: Jakob Dylan, “Seeing Things”

October 1, 2008 – 4:57 pm by Alan Cook

 

 

Jakob Dylan, “Seeing Things”
(Columbia, 2008)

 

Bruce Springsteen has had a very long and successful career doing his best Bob Dylan impersonation. In one of the most delicious twists of irony in Pop music Jakob Dylan has had a somewhat less successful career ripping off Bruce Springsteen. For the most Part “Seeing Things” is a low key affair made up of acoustic guitars, sparse drums, and not much else. The album feels like it was recorded in a dilapidated farm house complete with buckling hardwood floors, cracking plaster, and pealing paint. Having been produced by Rick
Rubin it shares quite a few sonic similarities with the late Johnny Cash’s most recent recordings. Read the rest of this entry »

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ALBUM REVIEW: Wolf Parade, “At Mount Zoomer”

September 30, 2008 – 1:21 pm by Andy Smith

 

 

 

Wolf Parade
At Mount Zoomer
(Sub Pop, 2008)

Music: ***

Sound: ****

The sophomore offering from Montreal’s Wolf Parade would seem to be more critical to the band’s future career aspirations than normal. This is due in part to the promise and associated buzz generated by the band’s 2005 debut Apologies To the Queen Mary, but it is also because the band works in the same off-kilter indie pop style as so many other similarly minded bands including the Shins, Rogue Wave, Modest Mouse and a multitude of lesser-known acts. Three years after Wolf Parade’s debut, this increasingly crowded stylistic territory leaves little room for them to stumble and still be remembered. If you need a parallel, think of all of the lesser bands that were signed in the post-Nirvana grunge feeding frenzy. Read the rest of this entry »

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Like What You’re Reading Here?

September 29, 2008 – 9:24 am by News Desk

Come join the conversation at the Big Black Disk forums!

 

Visit Big Black Disk

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ALBUM REVIEW: The Raconteurs, “Consolers of the Lonely”

September 29, 2008 – 9:15 am by Jeffrey Benkert

 

 

The Raconteurs: “Consolers of the Lonely”

(Warner Bros, 2008)
Music: *****
Sound: *****

Let me first say that I have absolutely nothing against Meg White. I love the White Stripes, and have spent more hours dancing like a madman to White Blood Cells than any other record ever made.
With that out of the way, there are no words to describe how happy I am that Jack White is in front of a real band. The Raconteurs second studio album, Consolers of the Lonely, combines White’s passionate, yelping vocals, franticly brilliant guitar work, and powerful musical presence with the songwriting and musical prowess of the brilliant Brendan Benson. White and Benson’s collaborative efforts create the type of mysterious, bluesy Americana that often permeates legendary rock albums. Read the rest of this entry »

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ALBUM REVIEW: Vampire Weekend, “Vampire Weekend”

September 26, 2008 – 12:59 pm by Vince Capece

 

 

 

Vampire Weekend

(XL Records, 2008)

Sound: 5

Music: 3 ½

 

 

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, “alternative” music included acts like REM and XTC. These “stripped down” bands weren’t over-produced in order to showcase their instrumental talents and lyrical stories.

In the past thirty years, that type of “alternative” became more mainstream and eventually disappeared. The newer generations of so-called “alternative” bands have been, for the most part, less talented with less important stories to tell.

This becomes more apparent when each new act is touted by mainstream media as the “next big thing” in what used to be underground music. Vampire Weekend became one of these “latest and greatest” indie rock acts. Read the rest of this entry »

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