One Dynamic Duo
Mark Lanegan is one prolific guy. The 48-year old musician boasts an impressive resume, having been involved in a slew of bands and collaborations (with the likes of Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age, The Gutter Twins and Isobel Campbell, to name a few) and released several albums of solo work. Black Pudding is Lanegan’s latest collaboration with the English guitarist Duke Garwood, who made appearances on Lanegan’s 2012 album Blues Funeral. As one might guess, the duo make for a pretty good team.
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By Charlee Redman Posted in Reviews Duke Garwood, Mark Lanegan
More of the Same
Volume 3, the fourth album from the duo She & Him, follows the precedent set by the first two installments of the group’s catalogue: easily digested SoCal folk-pop, sun-kissed nostalgia for summer afternoons decades ago, lying in the sand or speeding down some curving, coastal highway with the windows down.
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By Charlee Redman Posted in Reviews M. Ward, She & Him, Zooey Deschanel
Infectious Irreverence
Mosquito proves to be a fitting name for the fourth album from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Like its namesake, the album flits and leaps in fits of airborne eclecticism, drawing from a gritty, post-punk past and infusing its sound with elements of psychedelia, electro-pop and swaggering art rock. While Mosquito may not be as coherent as the creative indie pop of Fever to Tell or the brash dance tunes from It’s Blitz!, it certainly doesn’t leave without a sting.
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By Charlee Redman Posted in High Fidelity, Reviews Dr. Octagon, James Murphy, Karen O, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Ready for Takeoff
Ministry of Love is a big, ambitious debut for the L.A.-based duo IO Echo. After releasing a self-titled EP in 2012 to a fair amount of acclaim, Ioanna Gika and Leopold Ross (who’s also played bass for The Big Pink) have released an album that combines a diverse array of influences into a cosmic, cool sound that’s at once futuristic and nostalgic.
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By Charlee Redman Posted in Reviews IO Echo, Ioanna Gika, Leopold Ross
Sugar-Sweet and Upbeat
Michael Benjamin Lerner, otherwise known as the one-man band Telekinesis, emerged from the rainy Seattle landscape in 2009 with Telekinesis!, an album full of affable power-pop produced by fellow northwestern indie rocker Chris Walla, of Death Cab for Cutie fame. Lerner followed Telekinesis! with 2011’s 12 Desperate Straight Lines, another record praised for its pop sensibilities. And now, with his third album Dormarion, Telekinesis continues to craft his brand of slick indie-pop, with a few healthy doses of synth and stylistic experimentation.
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By Charlee Redman Posted in Reviews Death Cab for Cutie, Spoon, Telekinesis
Bona Fide Folk
Muchacho, the sixth album from Alabaman virtuoso Phosphorescent (also known as Matthew Houck), is filled to the brim with candid, heartfelt songs about love, sadness and redemption, permeated by a youthful, hopeful energy appropriate to its name. Houck composed the album after a meditative stint in Mexico, recording highly textured, almost orchestral arrangements that range from quirky, synthetic folk to rambling country blues. And even though it was recorded in the urban jungles of Brooklyn, Muchacho evokes the sun-soaked deserts of Mexico, tumbleweed towns and big western skies.
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By Charlee Redman Posted in High Fidelity, Reviews Matthew Houck, Muchacho, Phosphorescent
No Lions, Witches, or Wardrobes Here
An album title like The Chronicles of Marnia might lead one to expect some sort of overly indulgent, introspective, pseudo-witty navel-gazing, or some overly nerdy C.S. Lewis references at the very least. But when Marnie Stern gives such a moniker to her record, these sorts of expectations fall by the wayside.
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By Charlee Redman Posted in Reviews Marnie Stern
Dark and Arty
Fans of Suuns are no strangers to the band’s peculiarity—the Montreal band’s debut album Zeroes QC unwound with erratic electro spurts and pounding post-punk furor. And like Zeroes, Suun’s new release Images Du Futur is enchantingly strange, offering dark, twisting landscapes where contorted guitars and Ben Shemie’s paranoiac vocals rise out of the pervasive sonic gloom.
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By Charlee Redman Posted in Reviews SUUNS
Down Home Country Blues
Good Light, the newest release from Tennessee’s Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, would be the perfect soundtrack to a nostalgic, romantic film set somewhere south of the Mason Dixon line: it’s got sweet, folksy acoustic love songs and rollicking southern rock jams. And it’s no wonder that the band first sprung to popularity after excerpts from its 2005 album Washed in Blue appeared in Lifetime and Showtime television series. But like many things appropriated for television and mass consumption, Good Light sacrifices some of its verve and originality for smoothly polished, somewhat superficial tunes that are sure to please the masses.
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By Charlee Redman Posted in Reviews Drew Holcomb, Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors
Sweet as Honey, Stings like a Bee
Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, otherwise known as the musician and Maine-native Aly Spaltro, masters the art of storytelling on Ripely Pine, her most recent album. Each track forms a mini-narrative, constructed with arcs and climaxes, rising and falling in gentle lulls and hypnotic dénouements.
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By Charlee Redman Posted in High Fidelity, Reviews Aly Spaltro, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper
