Album Reviews
Dean Wareham
Dean Wareham
Mar 11, 2014 Issue #49 - February/March 2014 - Portlandia
Dean Wareham's debut solo recording—last year's majestic mini-album/EP Emancipated Hearts—brought out the softer side in the former frontman of both Galaxie 500 and Luna. Emotive, fragile, and soaked in haunting melody, the EP's collection of faint lullabies was one of 2013's most understated and beautiful releases.
Metronomy
Love Letters
Mar 10, 2014 Issue #49 - February/March 2014 - Portlandia
Under the direction of frontman and lead songwriter Joseph Mount, the last few years have seen Metronomy hone themselves into Britain's most unique and forward-thinking pop group.
Highasakite
Silent Treatment
Mar 07, 2014 Issue #49 - February/March 2014 - Portlandia
Silent Treatment is the international debut full-length from Oslo five-piece Highasakite. It follows a couple of Norwegian releases and 2012's excellent In and Out of Weeks EP, the latter of which includes the band's majestic, soaring pop song "Indian Summer."
Classic Interviews
2010 Artist Survey: Chris Chu of The Morning Benders
Dec 10, 2010 Web Exclusive
For Under the Radar’s 8th annual Artist Survey we emailed some of our favorite artists a few questions relating to 2010. Pick up a copy of Under the Radar’s Year End issue for interviews with: The Antlers, Bon Iver, Caribou, Club 8, Delphic, Rose Elinor Dougall, Gayngs, Hot Chip, Lost in the Trees, Love is All, The Love Language, Mogwai, of Montreal, Okkervil River, Yoko Ono, Owen Pallett, Plants and Animals, Mark Ronson, Superchunk, Tame Impala, Vampire Weekend, Sharon Van Etten, and Vivian Girls. Here’s a survey from Chris Chu of The Morning Benders.
Comic Book Reviews
Demon Knights: Vol. 3: The Gathering Storm
DC
Feb 20, 2014 Web Exclusive
At the fringes of DC's New 52 reboot is Demon Knights, which DC canceled last year after 23 issues. Vol. 3: The Gathering Storm collects the final 10 issues, starting with the last three by initial writer Paul Cornell and concluding as Robert Venditti took over scripting duties for the final seven, with Bernard Chang ably drawing all 10.
Book Reviews
Bruce Pavitt
Experiencing Nirvana: Grunge in Europe, 1989
Feb 11, 2014 Web Exclusive
In Experiencing Nirvana, SubPop Records co-founder Bruce Pavitt documents the 1989 Mudhoney and Tad/Nirvana tours through Europe in 1989.
News
Modest Mouse Announce U.S. Tour Dates
Mar 11, 2014
While there's still no word on when their follow-up to 2007's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, Modest Mouse have announced plans for a new tour.
Interviews
Mac DeMarco on His New Album, “Salad Days”
Mar 11, 2014 Issue #49 - February/March 2014 - Portlandia
"I've already got in trouble from my label for giving details...they might castrate me!" says Mac DeMarco several months before the release of Salad Days, his second full-length album under his own name.
Gardens & Villa - Chris Lynch on Their New Album, Advice for Young Musicians, and Overcoming Shyness
Mar 10, 2014 Web Exclusive
Gardens & Villa's frontman, Chris Lynch, is crouched in the darkest corner of his band's rehearsal space, a warehouse in Gardens & Villa's hometown of Santa Barbara, California that looks more like a garage that's used for storage.
Pleased to meet you
Cheatahs Discuss Their Self-Titled Debut Album
Feb 18, 2014 Web Exclusive
Most Anglophiles tend to worship from afar. Three of the London-based Cheatahs did just the opposite—vocalist/guitarist Nathan Hewitt originally hails from Edmonton, Canada, bassist/producer Dean Reid is from San Diego, California, and from Dresden, Germany is drummer Marc Raue. The only local, so to speak, from Leicester, U.K., is guitarist James Wignall.
Lists
Ranked: 2014 Oscar Nominated Live Action Short Films
Feb 28, 2014
The 86th Annual Academy Awards ceremony will happen this Sunday, March 2nd. This week we've taken a look at this year's short film competitions. The Academy defines a short film as an original motion picture running 40 minutes or less, and excludes all advertisments, unaired or unsold television episodes, or credit sequences from feature-length films. Our critic, Shawn Hazelett, watched and ranked all of this year's Oscar-nominated shorts. In this final installment, he'll look at this year's live action category.
Live reviews
by:Larm Day Three: First Aid Kit, Jaakko Eino Kalevi, Ice Cream Cathedral, and Kate Boy
Mar 06, 2014
The music on Saturday night was pretty impressive: First Aid Kit, Jaakko Eino Kalevi, Ice Cream Cathedral, and Kate Boy.
Blog
True Detective : “Form and Void” (Season 1, Episode 8) Recap/Analysis
Mar 11, 2014
By far the most chilling set of images in tonight's season finale (and close to the first story in the True Detective anthology series) wasn't the revelation of a terrestrial Carcosa, the preserved body of Billy Childress, or the superhuman murderous antics of his son Errol.
Media
- Premiere: Painted Palms Mixtape (SXSW Party Edition) Painted Palms
- Premiere: “DROP” Album Stream Tying Tiffany
- Premiere: “Natural Selection (live)” Video Alexander von Mehren
- Premiere: The Mary Onettes Mixtape (SXSW Party Edition) The Mary Onettes
- Premiere: “Tes Histoires Invisibles” Video Watoo Watoo
- “Del Rio” (B-side) MP3 Stream St. Vincent
Cinema Reviews
Teenage
Mar 11, 2014 Web Exclusive
Filmmaker Matt Wolf’s Teenage tracks the origins of modern youth culture through the early 20thCentury, to intriguing but inconclusive results.
DVD Reviews
Thief Blu-ray/DVD
Studio: Criterion
Feb 25, 2014 Web Exclusive
In what will likely go down as one of the most assured cinematic debuts, Michael Mann's Thief (from 1981) is a neon-drenched neo-noir heist flick, magnificently restored to its initial luster by the Criterion Collection.
Television Reviews
The Walking Dead: “Still” (Season 4: Episode 12) Recap/Analysis
AMC, Sundays 9/8 Central
Mar 05, 2014 Web Exclusive
Tony Soprano, Don Draper, Walter White, Frank Underwood—for whatever reason, modern audiences like their protagonists conflicted, duplicitous and deeply flawed. Despite the moral ambiguity inherent in having to live in a world where you have to kill other humans as a necessity, The Walking Dead is remarkable for just how traditional the show is in portraying its central struggle as being essentially between the good Rick Grimes fighting against the bad, in both zombie and human form.