When we first met Lianne La Havas, on her 2012 debut, she was a South London 22-year-old coming of age, electric guitar in hand. Plucking out rhythm lines that sounded like bossa nova gone rockabilly, she sang about love’s ups and downs in a voice that moved from gold to… Source: RollingStone Link: Blood
It may have taken seven records and a prison scare, but Lamb of God’s expert growler, Randy Blythe, finally sings for once, on “Overlord,” a grungy ballad on this LP — and he actually sounds good doing it. It feels like the threat of losing everything before Blythe was found not… Source: RollingStone Link: VII: Sturm […]
Bay Area electronic artist Holly Herndon is an award-winning experimental composer as well as a former Berlin club kid, and both sides of that background come through on her beguiling second album. Herndon’s music is body-moving and confusing, with cybernetic vocal shards crisscrossing above tracks that can recall Aphex Twin’s… Source: RollingStone Link: Platform
In the Seventies and Eighties, Giorgio Moroder crafted disco hits for Donna Summer, Blondie and David Bowie. Now, after a nudge from Daft Punk, the 75-year-old Svengali is attempting a decades-in-the-making comeback with a cast of A-list collaborators. Although a handful of dated, unimaginative instrumentals drag down Déjà Vu’s momentum,… Source: RollingStone Link: Déjà Vu
Veruca Salt’s 1994 hit “Seether” turned Nirvana guitar growl and Breeders vocal snap into a bubble-grunge classic. The Chicago band’s albums were smarter than they got credit for back then, and this one, the group’s first with its original lineup since 1997, is great by any standard. Singer-guitarists Nina Gordon… Source: RollingStone Link: Ghost Notes
Meek Mill is one of hip-hop’s most powerful brag machines, hollering blunt-force boasts with desperate energy and uncut brio. His second LP begins with the epic “Lord Knows,” where he furiously rhymes about his underdog climb to the three-comma club over a Mozart sample. Meek has a flair for internal… Source: RollingStone Link: Dreams Worth […]
Nina Simone was a performer first and foremost; her recordings had to translate the drama and intensity of her live presence. This tribute set finds some of her clearest heirs — Lauryn Hill, Mary J. Blige, Common — reworking her standards with love, but the results veer sharply between transcendent and tepid…. Source: RollingStone Link: Nina Revisited: […]
On this set of far-flung covers, Sam Beam (a.k.a. indie folk act Iron and Wine) and Ben Bridwell of indie rockers Band of Horses tackle everything from Talking Heads’ “This Must Be the Place” to Spiritualized and early-Nineties Sade. Bridwell renders a perfectly gentle vocal on David Gilmour’s “There’s No… Source: RollingStone Link: Sing Into […]
There’s a half-remembered quality to Kevin Parker’s songs for Tame Impala. Melodies and rhythms arrive in thunderclaps — carefully orchestrated or artfully accidental — or float by in soothing clouds. These are the epiphanies and freakouts of decades past: soul, space rock, nerd funk, studio-whiz pop. You feel sure you recognize something,… Source: RollingStone Link: Currents
On his first solo outing, Christian Letts — the guitarist for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros — dials down his main band’s cheery campfire sing-alongs and opts for something much more contemplative. With production and guest vocals from Marcus Mumford, Hold Fast is a self-assured, largely acoustic exploration of faith and… Source: RollingStone Link: Hold Fast