Album Reviews

Billy Bragg
The Roaring Forty (1983-2023) (Deluxe Edition)
Dec 05, 2023 Web Exclusive
There are few artists whose career retrospective merits a 14 CD box set, featuring a staggering 300+ songs. Billy Bragg is one of those few.

Grateful Dead
Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA 3/2/1969
Dec 04, 2023 Web Exclusive
For Black Friday Record Store Day, Rhino released Grateful Dead’s final performance from the band’s four-day stand at the Fillmore West, pressed onto five vinyl records

Julie Byrne with Laugh Cry Laugh
Julie Byrne with Laugh Cry Laugh
Dec 01, 2023 Web Exclusive
Julie Byrne’s jaw-dropping 2023 LP, The Greater Wings, was her first in six years, and, rightly, likely to make an appearance in numerous album of the year lists.
News

Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief Shares Video for New Song “Ruined” and Announces Tour Dates
Dec 05, 2023
Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief has shared a new solo song, “Ruined,” via a music video. She has also announced some new 2024 tour dates.
Interviews

Sun June’s Laura Colwell on “Bad Dream Jaguar” and Navigating Change
Dec 04, 2023 Web Exclusive
Three albums in and Sun June’s star shows no signs of fading. Their latest album, Bad Dream Jaguar (on Run for Cover), adds in additional elements in the form of brass, woodwinds, and pedal steel. But though the instrumentation has broadened, the album maintains a mirage-like sheen across its dozen tracks.

The Cast of “Fargo” Season Five Dissect Their Characters
Nov 30, 2023 Web Exclusive
The power trio of Juno Temple, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jon Hamm trade compliments and share quips about their experience on the critically-acclaimed FX anthology series, “Fargo.”
Pleased to meet you

Egyptian Blue on “A Living Commodity”
Nov 20, 2023 Web Exclusive
Egyptian Blue released their long-awaited debut LP “A Living Commodity” last month, so Under the Radar caught up with founder member Andy Buss.
Lists

Under the Radar’s Top 100 Albums of 2022 Part 1
Dec 23, 2022
Are things back to normal in 2022? They are, aren’t they? Well not quite. In the past year we eased out of the pandemic, but COVID-19 is still around and still deadly to some (just look at what’s happening in China, now that their long national lockdown has lifted). The pandemic door has been left ajar, rather than fully closed. We put the chaos for the Trump administration in the rearview only for us to relive it via the very necessary January 6th Commission and the specter of the former president running again in 2024 (if he’s not barred from doing so or even in jail). And while Biden’s administration has been fairly steady and helped lead the Democrats to an unexpectedly strong showing in the midterm elections, over in the UK chaos has reigned with no less than three different prime ministers in one year (Liz Truss being the shortest serving prime ministers in British history), the death of the Queen, strikes across the country, and a recent poll having a majority of Brits admitting that Brexit was a mistake.
Those of us who grew up during the tale end of the Cold War and the beginning of perestroika have not been totally surprised that Russia has become a major adversary to the West again in the last decade, but it was still shocking when Russian President Vladimir Putin followed through with his threats to invade Ukraine. On top of the terrible toll on the Ukrainian people and its extraordinary President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the war has destabilized financial markets worldwide and helped lead to massive inflation, with all this talk from financial experts of a possible recession next year seemingly willing such a thing into existence.
After the last few years of the pandemic and all the political upheaval worldwide, the massive right and left divisions in this country and in others, it leaves one wondering if the events of every single year felt this monumental to our younger selves and to our ancestors. Certainly there have been other eras of even greater turmoil (World War II, the 1960s), but will things ever feel truly normal again?
Musicians continued to find their footing in 2022, with live shows and festivals pretty much back to normal and free of major COVID restrictions. Still, many musicians were finding it more expensive than ever to tour this year, in large part because of inflation, but also because of the unfair financial cuts some venues were taking of merchandise sales. With it being hard for indie artists to make much money from streaming or record sales in recent years, this year touring also became a less reliable source of income, with bands such as Animal Collective cancelling whole tours because they knew they’d lose money. 2022 also saw a slew of albums written and recorded during the pandemic, with some lyrics betraying their lockdown inspiration. Ben Gibbard, for example, sang about missing strangers on Death Cab For Cutie’s return-to-form, Asphalt Meadows, a lyric likely written at a time when interacting with strangers could prove deadly.
Asphalt Meadows lands at #12 on Under the Radar’s Top 100 Albums of 2022 list. Prior to June 2021, we had never even heard of the band that made it to #1 on our list, so meteoric was their rise. The rest of the list is filled with some familiar faces to be sure, but some other debut albums are peppered throughout our Top 100. To arrive at such a list, 23 of our writers and editors (including myself and my co-publisher/wife Wendy Redfern) submitted ballots of their 45 favorite albums of 2022, listed in order of preference from first to last. They were submitted via a Google Sheets spreadsheet that helped tabulate the eventual list. An album had to be picked by at least three or four writers to make the list (19 of our writers had our #1 album on their list and it was the clear winner of the vote, getting 100 more points than our #2). Then we worked out the Top 94 albums and held a separate vote to determine which albums should round out the bottom six, with our writers deciding between 21 albums that could make the bottom of the list. Some albums that almost made the list include (in no particular order) ones by GIFT, Tomberlin, Crack Cloud, Broken Bells, Skullcrusher, Sam Prekop and John McEntire, Just Mustard, Florence + The Machine, Warpaint, Cheekface, The Weeknd, Maggie Rogers, Craig Finn, The Orielles, and My Idea. Consider those honorable mentions.
As the next year dawns, I’ve already heard some January to March albums that will surely make our Top 100 Albums of 2023 list. It’s already shaping up to be another great year for new music. But it’s been exhausting living through history, so can 2023 please just be a boring year?

Live reviews

CMAT @ O2 Ritz, Manchester, UK, November 23, 2023
Dec 04, 2023
CMAT came to Manchester’s O2 Ritz last month and Under the Radar’s Andy Von Pip put together a photo gallery of the evening.
Blog
Under the Radar’s 2023 Holiday Gift Guide, Part 1: Tabletop Games
Dec 01, 2023
New roleplaying and board game releases for the 2023 holiday season.
Media

- Spacey Jane – Listen to Our Interview in the New Episode of Our Under the Radar Podcast
- Tim Burgess – Listen to Our Interview in the New Episode of Our Under the Radar Podcast
- Phoenix – Listen to Our Interview in the New Episode of Our Under the Radar Podcast
- Bloc Party – Listen to Our Interview in the New Episode of Our Under the Radar Podcast
Cinema Reviews

Cat Person
Oct 26, 2023 Web Exclusive
Cat Person is an entertaining, thought-provoking, well-made film that should raise Jones’ and Braun’s film acting profiles.
DVD Reviews
![The Last Picture Show [4K UHD]](https://undertheradarmag.com/uploads/review_images/Kdd1vlVmnbyb2MamPGVm4SdmVOpfgo_large.jpg)
The Last Picture Show [4K UHD]
Studio: The Criterion Collection
Nov 22, 2023 Web Exclusive
A heartbreaking look at several aimless characters in a dying Texas town.
Television Reviews

Dark Winds (Season Two)
AMC/AMC+, July 27, 2023
Nov 22, 2023 Web Exclusive
The AMC drama about 1970s Navajo tribal police officers at an isolated New Mexico reservation begins this season with stony-faced, flinty-eyed protagonist Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Sergeant Bernadette Manuelito, who is as gravely serious as her boss in the midst of closing in on a formidable new suspect.