Review: Radon Chong – “Honey Worlds” EP January 19, 2021 The best songs by Pittsburgh avant-rock band Radon Chong don’t meander to a close; they kind of prance and trot and stumble along in… Continue Reading
Review: The Soviet Machines – S/T January 19, 2021 Enlisting Jack Endino turned out to be a damn good decision for the Soviet Machines. The noted Seattle-based producer/grunge “godfather” lends a caught-lightning-in-a-bottle vitality… Continue Reading
Feature: Best Songs of 2020 (Excerpt) December 29, 2020 14. The Chicks: “Gaslighter” [Sony Music] Election years breed proselytizing – and, yes, a fair bit of preaching to the choir. And 2020, in… Continue Reading
Review: Calexico – “Seasonal Shift” December 8, 2020 The song is hushed, even by Calexico standards, self-conscious and even a little timid in its presentation. It unfurls with carefully finger-picked guitars and… Continue Reading
Feature: Rediscover “The For Carnation” December 1, 2020 “Now when I fall to earth, I hear applause/ I love to hear applause,” Brian McMahan sings, suggesting various readings, on “Emp. Man’s Blues,”… Continue Reading
Review: Killer Be Killed – “Reluctant Hero” December 1, 2020 Expectations suck. So, leave it to an alt-metal supergroup to find a way to fuck with what you crave and anticipate from its latest… Continue Reading
Profile: Radon Chong (2020) November 27, 2020 Radon Chong swears up and down that it’s not a – patent pending – Thinking Man’s Band, despite lots of mounting evidence to the… Continue Reading
Review: The Nels Cline Singers – “Share The Wealth” November 24, 2020 The acoustic guitar, in somewhat off-tempo 4/4, nestles a saxophone that pensively wails. In the distance, the jingle-jangle of incidental percussion provide a kind… Continue Reading
Review: The Casket Lottery – “Short Songs for End Times” November 19, 2020 At 6:27, the album-closing “Sad Dream” is by far the longest, most ambitious and most uncharacteristic song on Short Songs for End Times, the second post-hiatus… Continue Reading
Review: David Grubbs – “October 19, 2017” November 13, 2020 6 April 2020, “The Quarantine Concerts”: This is the first time I remember hearing David Grubbs like this, and I was unmoored by the presentation and… Continue Reading
