Category: Reviews

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  • Last Monday’s #songoftheday was a track called “Pefect Vision” by a new five piece band from Philadelphia called Cheerleader. In our write up about the song, we remarked that it was one of those rare songs that’s so mind-blowingly good that we’re tempted to make it not merely our #songoftheday but a #songoftheweek. Now that…

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  • New Crown is the long awaited third album from the gritty, classic rock lovin’ band Wolfmother. Technically, a third album was recorded prior to this one but frontman Andrew Stockdale felt it had a new vibe and decided to release it as a solo album. It was called Keep Moving and I gave it a…

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  • French Style Furs is Nathan Willett, Matt Maust, & Nathan Warkentin French Style Furs Is Exotic Bait LP came to fruition through a combination of fate, artistic vision and the spontaneity of three long time friends. During frequent stops in NYC, Cold War Kids reunited with an LA compatriot from We Barbarians. One day during…

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  • If you don’t like it when we post foreign language stuff then you’ll want to stay away from this tune, which is an infectious slice of Italo pop, Roisin doing the old school Italian thing… And, we must say, she does it marvelously… Such a breath-taking tune.

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  • Back in March I reviewed Lacuna Coil’s superb new album, Broken Crown Halo, but I didn’t say much about this song, “I Forgive (But I Won’t Forget Your Name),” for the simple reason that I’d already written so much about other songs on the album that first caught my ear. But that doesn’t mean that…

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  • There are an awful lot of bands calling themselves “melodic death metal” these days, but in most cases the vocals are still raw and growled throughout their albums, only the guitars having a more melodic vibe than you’d get with your standard death metal. Not the case with Insomnium, however. On the contrary, roughly half…

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  • Sylvan Esso’s “Play It Right” is one of those magical songs you listen to and wonder if it was made on another planet because it sounds so very original. But, yes, it was made here on earth (obviously), using lots of little organic sounds looped around thunderous beats and loud, blaring synth courtesy of the…

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  • The duo known as no:carrier was formed in Germany in 1995 and has been active with its current line-up since 2001. These days, they operate through a great distance with producer/keyboardist/occasional vocalist Chris Wirsig living in San Francisco, California while main vocalist Cynthia Wechselberger continues to reside in her home country of Germany. But I…

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  • Cheerleader started off as a bedroom exercise, longtime buddies Joe Haller (vocals/guitar) and Chris Duran (guitar) making various demos with Garageband. But in 2013 the Connecticut natives got serious and relocated to Philadelphia where they completed the band’s line-up with Joshua Pannepacker (keyboards/guitar), Paul Impellizeri (bass) and Carl Bahner (drums). Today they’re opening for The…

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  • Is there such a thing as cold war chic? That’s how I keep hearing Client described, though I think it’s more of a reference to their album covers and videos than to their music. After all, Authority is their fifth album and it’s only the first to show the women’s faces on the cover. Previous…

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  • The last time I saw Butch Walker — sometime last year, at The Sinclair in Cambridge, Massachusetts — he did a bunch of new songs and talked about how they were going to be on a new EP he was releasing called Peachtree Battle. I really enjoyed all of the songs and was very much…

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  • Lana Del Rey’s red hot new single “West Coast” may, in fact, be at least partially about the West Coast, but it’s like the West Coast via Twin Peaks with its entirely haunting music and her super trippy vocals. Interestingly, the song, which was written by Lana and Rick Nowels, actually gets a bit slower…

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