With its raised-fist cover photo and violent, primal post-punk grind, you’d expect the second album from arty London band Savages to be an anti-everything screed. But their music is driven by emotions that are almost unprecedented in the genre that gave us Joy Division and Public Image Limited: “Love is the answer,” they… Source: RollingStone Link: Adore Life
Tortoise were matter-of-fact poobahs of a modestly potent Nineties movement dubbed “post-rock,” which was pretty much what their elders called “prog-rock,” but with beats refreshingly prioritized over wanky virtuosity and way fewer proto-Game of Thrones fantasy-fiction lyrics. (In Tortoise’s case, lyrics were largely ditched altogether.) It was an excellent notion… Source: RollingStone Link: The Catastrophist
Among midlife indie kids working a sidelong vision of classic-rock ecstasy, there aren’t many doing it with more grace or smarts than Eleanor Friedberger. She’s been at it since the early 2000s – first with her brother Matthew in the Fiery Furnaces, and now as a solo artist – and… Source: RollingStone Link: New View
It’s been nearly a quarter of a century since Suede introduced Brit-pop to the world on a 1992 Melody Maker cover that dubbed them “the best new band in Britain.” The London outfit went on to release a series of U.K. chart-toppers, only to fall victim to changing tastes toward the… Source: RollingStone Link: Night Thoughts
Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg has an instantly recognizable voice, sonorous and smooth. That sound has built a loyal following for the Austin, Texas, band over six previous albums of subtly psychedelic indie rock and chamber-pop; the most recent, like 2010’s The Golden Archipelago, have often tended towards Shearwater’s spectral side, heavy on… Source: RollingStone Link: Jet Plane […]
Over 20 years after the inception of the feminist punk wave known as riot grrrl, New York rapper Le1f has adopted the same radically confessional ethos for somewhere it’s desperately needed: outside the well-documented complex of the alt white girl, and into the spectrum of the black, gay experience. Le1f traverses… Source: RollingStone Link: Riot Boi
Hundreds of millions of YouTube views aren’t enough for Troye Sivan: The Australian vlogging phenom wants to be a pop star, too. This dreamy electro-pop debut is a strong start, as Sivan croons lyrics that could come from a John Green novel in soothing tones over lush synth backdrops. Many… Source: RollingStone Link: Blue Neighbourhood
Ten years after getting their start as pointy-haired emo-glam show ponies, Panic! at the Disco are now a vehicle for frontman Brendon Urie, who describes their fifth LP as “a mix between Sinatra and Queen.” That means a little more glitzy polish and loads of gloppy decadence (“I lost a… Source: RollingStone Link: Death of […]
A couple of albums before 2005’s Gimme Fiction – Spoon’s fifth album, and the Austin band’s first to make the Billboard Top 200 – leader Britt Daniel stripped back their sound to staccato guitars, cool piano chords and unconventional percussion patterns. This gambit paid off spectacularly, especially after the uncommonly jaunty “That’s the Way We… Source: RollingStone Link: Gimme Fiction […]
Justin Bieber and One Direction have always been the yin and yang of the pop-idol game, but never more so than now. They bring opposite agendas to their new LPs: Bieber is the comeback kid, with “Sorry” as his theme song. He spends Purpose learning lessons, begging for forgiveness and vowing… Source: RollingStone Link: Made in […]