Tag: reviews

  • The last album by CSS, otherwise known as Cansei de Ser Sexy, was 2011’s La Liberacion. While “I Love You” and “Hits Me Like A Rock” were uber-catchy pop gems, the rest of the Brazilian band’s third album felt somehow misguided. And their second album, Donkey, was only slightly better. Their first album, however, was…

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  • The KISS album Monster, produced by Paul Stanley & Greg Collins, is the band’s 2012 follow up to 2009’s Sonic Boom. In general I considered Sonic Boom the return to form that the band hadn’t had since Revenge, and also that it was the closest they’d come to an album worthy of those released in…

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  • Ben Lee’s new album, Ayahuasca: Welcome To The Work, was inspired by an experience he had while tripping on the extremely strong hallucinogenic plant ayahuasca.  He’s described the experience as life-changing and he wanted to pay tribute to the plant as a result.  If it sounds silly, well, yes I suppose it is a bit…

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  • Lou Doillon might be unknown to most people here in the United States, but in her native France she’s practically royalty, being the daughter of the famous French singer/actress Jane Birkin and the acclaimed film director Jacques Doillon. She’s also the half-sister of actress/singer Charlotte Gainsbourg and step-daughter of the late French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg.…

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  • Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme’s last project was Them Crooked Vultures, the all-star album he did with Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin). I tried very hard to get into their self-titled album, but it never managed to grip me. The musicianship was top notch, but the songs…

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  • Liberty ‘N’ Justice is a Christian hard rock/heavy metal band formed in 1991 by Justin Murr and Patrick Marchand. They released four albums as a band, but in 2002 the group broke up. Only Justin Murr, a bassist and songwriter, decided to keep Liberty ‘N’ Justice going by enlisting a who’s who of hard rock…

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  • If you’ve ever wished that Camera Obscura would do away with their catchy hooks and up-tempo tunes then your prayers have been answered. Sort of. Here’s what singer Tracyanne Campbell told The Scotsman about the making of their new album, Desire Lines: “There are a couple of pop songs on the record but I was…

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  • I became a Tricky fan in 1996 when I bought his album Pre-Millennium Tension after a girl I’d just be out on a date with said that she loved him. She really emphasized the word “love,” and it was clear that she more or less worshiped the guy. I thought she was pretty wonderful, so…

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  • I tried but I just couldn’t get into Demi’s last album, Unbroken. With a slew of guests, including Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Dev, Iyaz and Jason Derulo, I felt like the album was trying too hard to do too many different things. She’d already had a massive hit with the song “Skyscraper,” which was a gorgeous…

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  • Alyssa is a Canadian singer/songwriter who was born in Edmonton, Alberta and grew up in Brampton, Ontario. She’s been rising to fame in several countries ever since she first released her song “Alone Again” in 2011. The song immediately caught people’s attention because it samples parts of “Alone” by Heart. As for how she got…

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  • Spacehog’s last album was 2001’s Hogyssey, a criminally under-rated album. But, then, if you ask me, all of Spacehog’s albums have been criminally under-rated. Their 1995 debut, Resident Alien, sold very well, but it really only spawned one hit, “In The Meantime,” which also happens to be their only U.S. hit ever, so, sadly, they…

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  • Many of the people who’ll be reading this review know almost nothing about Vanessa Paradis. To most people here in the United States, she’s simply known as Johnny Depp’s longtime girlfriend, as they were together from 1998 until 2012 and had two children. Some people might have read that Vanessa is a popular singer or…

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  • no·blesse o·blige [noh-bles oh-bleezh; French naw-bles aw-bleezh the moral obligation of those of high birth, powerful social position, etc., to act with honor, kindliness, generosity, etc. Origin:1830–40; < French: literally, nobility obliges   Noblesse Oblige is a duo consisting of French-Caribbean performer Valerie Renay and German producer Sebastian Lee Philipp. While they’re new to many…

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  • I don’t know why singer (and famous actor) Jared Leto and company decided to spell the word Thirty instead of simply using the number 30 this time around. Perhaps it’s an attempt to put some distance between this and their previous albums? But one wonders why they would do that when their last two albums…

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  • FACT released their self-titled major label debut in Japan in 2009 — a decade after they were formed in Japan’s Ibaraki Prefecture — and quickly gained a strong national and international following. They have since become one of Japan’s biggest and most-loved rock bands of the decade. In fact, their first two albums reached the…

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