Category: Reviews

  • Sally Shapiro is not a solo artist. We only see the beautiful blonde, fairy-like girl, who does use the pseudonym Sally Shapiro, but technically Sally Shapiro is a duo, the other half consisting of musician/producer Johan Agebjörn. That might sound a little confusing, but I think they like it that way. There’s always an element…

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  • When I first read the tracklisting for this album I thought that it had to be a mixtape, that Big Boi was sampling the likes of Phantogram, Little Dragon and Wavves. After all, it would be very unusual for a hip-hop artist to actually collaborate with any of these artists. But, I was wrong. Turns…

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  • Jamie Lidell’s last album, Jim, was a fantastic mix of soul, R&B and pop. There were even hints of country and bluegrass. The one thing the album wasn’t? Electronica. But his new self-titled album is a gorgeous, electro-pop/futuristic R&B masterpiece. Jamie was one half of the electro duo Super Collider and here he finally brings…

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  • “They said it was leaving me, the magic was leaving me, I don’t think so,” Robbie Williams sings triumphantly during “Be A Boy,” the opening song on his ninth studio album, Take The Crown. Having followed Robbie’s career for well over a decade I feel confident in saying that that statement is directed at his…

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  • Let me preface this by saying that I’m a big fan of Múm, who are a very experimental Icelandic group. I especially love their albums Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know and Summer Make Good. Some might think them too sparse or airy — or weird — but I find beauty in the simplicity…

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  • Two critically acclaimed children’s albums aside, No Fairy Tale is Lisa’s first album since 2004’s The Way It Really Is. Having waited so long to record a new album, you’d think she would have went into the studio armed with an acoustic guitar and an arsenal of songs in the vein of her gold albums…

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  • Gazelle Twin, otherwise known as Elizabeth Walling, is a British musician hailing from Brighton. Her debut album, The Entire City, is often described as “art rock,” but this E.P. is pure trip-hop. Well, 98% trip-hop. There’s a distinct electronica influence here, too. Elizabeth’s vocals on “Heartbeat” especially call to mind the brilliant Fever Ray, the…

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  • Las Vegas indie rock darlings Imagine Dragons have recently re:released their stunning 2012 debut, Night Visions, in a deluxe edition which now comes with five bonus tracks, known collectively as The Archive EP. The EP is available to be purchased alone on iTunes. “Round & Round” starts off with electric and acoustic guitars weaving in…

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  • This 5 song E.P. was released digitally last November. It was also released physically, though the CD is a limited edition collector’s item. (I actually just saw the CD on Amazon for less $$ than the download, so I’d recommend grabbing that.) The Amazon product description states, “While not a reflection of the direction of…

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  • Last year Blood Red Shoes, the duo consisting of Steven Ansell and Laura-Mary Carter, released one of the year’s very best albums in the form of In Time To Voices. Why they stopped promoting that and released a new 3 song E.P. is beyond me, but I’ll take all of the tunes from these two…

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  • Haim is a group formed by sisters Este, Danielle and Alana Haim with drummer Dash Hutton. They formed the group in 2006 in Los Angeles, California, but they didn’t actually start releasing music until 2012, taking time to perfect their very distinct sound. From the opening of “Better Off,” which features the girls harmonizing brilliantly…

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  • Gabrille Aplin is a British singer/songwriter hailing from Sutton Benger, Wiltshire who first rose to fame by posting acoustic covers of various songs on Youtube. Please Don’t Say You Love me is her fourth EP and her first for Parlophone Records. “Please don’t say you love me, ’cause I might not say it back,” Gabrielle…

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  • When Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink, otherwise known as Azure Ray, reunited in 2009 and set to work making their fourth album, Drawing Down the Moon, they used their very first album as a blueprint. “That approach facilitated Orenda (Fink) and I bringing our sound together stylistically and emotionally after working so many years apart,”…

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  • Forget Rod Stewart, *this* is how you do the American songbook. With 12 standards from the ’20’s through the ’60’s — each loosely representing a month of the year — Emmy marches through each of these precious classics with military-like precision and every bit of the wide-range of emotion she displays during each heart-breaking and…

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  • It seems like just yesterday I was buying Helloween’s brilliant Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part 1 on vinyl. But the fact of the matter is that two decades have past. Literally. And this, my friends, is Helloween’s 14th album. Boy does that make me feel old. It also makes me want to give a…

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