Sallie Ford Slap Back CD Review
If you were a fan of Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside, don’t assume you know what her new album is going to sound like.
Author: John B. Moore
Coheed and Cambria – In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
Released at a point when emo, screamo and pop punk were having an inexplicable revival in the early aughts, upstate New York’s Coheed and Cambria managed to sneak into the party when no one was watching the door, playing an impressive mix of prog rock and metal with a subtle inclusion of pop.
Skylar Gudasz – Car Song/Dream Lover 7” (Vinyl)
In just seven brief minutes, spread out over two songs, Durham, NC’s Skylar Gudasz has offered a glimpse at quite possibly the most starkly beautiful vocals to come along since The Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Timmins turned in her Trinity Sessions performance.
Kool Stuff Katie – Self-Titled
With just 10 songs, the duo Kool Stuff Katie has managed to sneak in the best debut of the year. Unfortunate band name aside, Portland-based musicians Shane Blem and Saren Oliver have crammed together garage rock, new wave, punk and a liberal mix of hooky pop music for an instantly-infectious sound that brings to mind everyone from The Cars and The Kinks to The Breeders and The Ramones.
Horse Feathers – So It Is With Us
Much like their first four efforts, Horse Feathers’ latest, So It Is With Us, is a collection of quiet, indie music that straddles the line between folk and Americana. And that is far from being a bad thing.
U2: Revolution by Mat Snow
Yes, there are plenty of U2 bios out there – some good, some dreadful and a couple pretty great; There are also a number of hardcover, coffee table-sized books on the band out there, but music journalist Mat Snow has found a way to marry the two, pulling together a pretty solid, overreaching bio on the band and packaging it in a beautiful, three-and-a-half pound book crammed with fantastic photos…
Bad Luck – Cold Bones
When people dismissively ask “You still listen to punk music?,” they are actually thinking of bands like the four-piece Bad Luck. This group from Long Island and Daytona Beach, represent all that made the genre such a muddled mess of mediocrity in the early aughts. Pop music and seventh grade poetry masquerading as “Emo” all got mislabeled with the Punk tag, perverting a genre that was doing just fine without…
The Turtles – 45 RPM Singles Collection
Hipsters and Baby Boomers rejoice! The latest, vinyl-only singles collection from The Turtles is a brilliant throw back and hopefully the start of a new trend.
Money for Nothing – A History of the Music Video
Yes, as the closing narration of Money for Nothing points out, “the music video is a dinosaur” – thanks mainly to the fact that the network that created the need for them is stuck in a death spiral of reality TV car wreck/porn. But that’s what makes this documentary that much more compelling; it’s a look back at the music video from its earliest inception six decades ago (actually earlier,…
Star Wars Art: Posters (Book)
Admittedly the appeal for this book is a little narrow. That being said, if you’re a Star Wars fan, My God, this coffee table is nirvana between two covers!
The Wonder Years – The Complete Series (DVD)
Nostalgia junkies rejoice, Star Vista Entertainment has just released a mammoth 26 DVD set of The Wonder Years, arguably the best family dramedy to surface in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
Not the Life it Seems: the True Lives of My Chemical Romance
Let’s get this out of the way up front: yes, it does seem odd that someone has written a bio on a band that was around for just over a decade; and a band that is (rightfully or not) maligned for their connection to the watered-down nu-Emo genre (I actually think a lot of the criticism is misdirected as the band were closer to Glam than they were Emo). It’s…
Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? [Chasing the Sun Edition]
It’s a year short of the album’s 20th anniversary, but I’m sure Oasis fans will forgive the transgression now that (What’s the Story) Morning Glory is getting a proper three-disc deluxe roll out.
Lunchbox – Lunchbox Loves You (Vinyl)
After more than a decade off, the Berkley power pop band Lunchbox is back with what is easily their finest collection of songs. A little goofy, but immensely fun, Lunchbox Loves You is 10 indie pop songs brimming with jangly guitars, sing-along choruses and plenty of handclaps.
Gimme Indie Rock: 500 essential American Underground Rock Albums 1981 – 1996 by Andrew Earles (Book)
Poor Andrew Earles. In, Gimme Indie Rock, his impressive new reference guide to Indie Rock, he managed to target a book squarely at the same crowd that will devour it in one reading, then spend endless hours online bitching about the records that were and were not deemed “essential.”
A Shoreline Dream – The Silent Sunrise
Shoegaze is still alive and well, thanks to bands like Denver-based A Shoreline Dream. Their fourth full-length, The Silent Sunrise, sounds like a band raised on old Lush, Ride and even a couple of Sigur Ros records. The nine-tracks here divert little from the basic formula of atmospheric guitars and Ryan Policky’s subtle vocals struggling to be heard over the deep lines of synth and guitars. The recording of The…
Deadbeat
The only-available-on-Hulu comedy Deadbeat flew low under the radar this year, while other Internet TV series like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards dominated most of the media coverage. It’s a shame though, as this goofy, raunchy comedy is funnier than just about most of the new sitcoms that debuted in the same year, on the traditional networks and cable channels.
A Long Way Down
Author Nick Hornby has had a decent track record over the years when it comes to transferring his novels into movies. High Fidelity was a critical and fan favorite and the same can be said of About a Boy. Fever Pitch, saw British and American adaptions, both strong, though decidedly different efforts, so Hornby was bound to finally hit a bump in the road.
Burning Britain: The History of UK Punk 1980-1984 by Ian Glasper
If you quickly answer “Blink 182!” when asked about your favorite punk band, this book is probably not meant for you. But for those with a burning desire to dig deeper than The Clash and Sex Pistols to discover below-the-radar groups from the original British punk rock scene, then Burning Britain is your new Bible.
The Posies – Failure (CD)
The Posies were one of the best Power Pop bands to come out of the late ‘80s/early ‘90s (just take a moment to let that sink in…). And thanks to nostalgia and a slew of Generation X-ers now running boutique record labels, the world gets to rediscover a number of sadly over-looked beauties from the not too distant past.