Jan 26, 2015 Music Issue #52 - September/October 2014 - St. Vincent

Six albums into their career, Pond is still known by most as that other psych-rock band from Australia.  More

Jan 23, 2015 Music Issue #52 - September/October 2014 - St. Vincent

The Dodos have always been a pleasantly disarming mix of salty and sweet. Complex rhythmic ideas round out simple but creative melodic lines, which are in turn occasionally rounded out by an unexpected dissonance. Basic instrumentation expands to fill up vast amounts of space, both on the recordings and during their hypnotic live shows. More

Jan 22, 2015 Music Web Exclusive

In the chorus of "A New Wave," halfway through Sleater-Kinney's new comeback album, No Cities to Love, Carrie Brownstein sings "No one here is taking notice/No outline will ever hold us/It's not a new wave, it's just you and me." More

Jan 21, 2015 Music Web Exclusive

In press notes, Alex Calder is often described as a "Mac DeMarco collaborator." It's a dubious way to introduce the singer/songwriter, who did time with DeMarco in the formative band Makeout Videotape, because it immediately and unjustly places him in DeMarco's shadow.  More

Jan 20, 2015 Music Issue #52 - September/October 2014 - St. Vincent

This box set gathers the first three proper albums from Australia's The Go-Betweens, plus rarities and a fine disc of formative singles. It's music that wholly deserves to be spoken of in the same reverent tones reserved for canonized '80s guitar-pop legends, from R.E.M. and The Smiths to top-tier Kiwis, The Clean. More

Jan 19, 2015 Music Issue #52 - September/October 2014 - St. Vincent

To quote Woody Allen, relationships are "...absurd, but we keep going through it because we need the eggs." Belle and Sebastian get it. Their ninth album Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance features a cast of damaged idealists on the hunt for love. More

Jan 16, 2015 Music Issue #52 - September/October 2014 - St. Vincent

Terrible World is the band's first studio LP since 2011's The King Is Dead, and it reveals a band older, wiser, and less reliant on the quirks and gimmicks of earlier releases (see: "The Crane Wife" parts 1-3, "The Mariner's Revenge Song,"The Hazards of Love, et al). In place of that are more intricate arrangements, more varied tempos and song structures, and subject matter befitting musicians now firmly in middle age. More

Jan 15, 2015 Music Issue #52 - September/October 2014 - St. Vincent

This drifty instrumental release couldn't be much further removed from the Suicide and Roy Orbison-haunted crooning Alex Zhang Hungtai made his name on. More

Jan 13, 2015 Music Issue #52 - September/October 2014 - St. Vincent

Ought's new EP is appropriately titled, given it begins with perhaps their most emotional song yet. More