Recent blog posts tagged with "albumreviews" from music blog aggregator, Elbo.ws http://elbo.ws/tag/albumreviews/ 2013-05-18T05:28:56+01:00 text/html 2013-05-17T19:07:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4957018/album-review-a-pale-horse-named-death-lay-my-soul/
So you're in the mood for some Alice in Chains, but the doomier styling of bands like Woods of Ypres has been calling your name all day. Making a playlist isn't going to cut it; you want your 20-ton slow jams with a heaping side of vocal harmonies right now! Welcome to A Pale Horse ... The post Album Review: A PALE HORSE NAMED DEATH Lay My Soul to Waste appeared first on Metal Injection .]]> text/html 2013-05-17T16:51:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4956747/imaginary-cities-fall-of-romance-album-review/


Imaginary Cities burst onto the scene and captured our imaginations (an a Polaris nomination) with their stunning 2010 debut Temporary Resident . On May 28th the Winnipeg duo come back with their second full length Fall of Romance . On the new album, principals Marti Sarbit and Rusty Matyas, take a much more elaborate approach to the music. The songs are more layered and elegant than the material on their debut. As a result though, they are also less peppy and contain fewer of the marvelous hooks that made the first record so compelling. [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T16:16:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4956665/single-serving-shark-week-go-west/


Our friends at Analog Edition / Everybody Taste are back with a brand new vinyl single from D.C.-based quartet Shark Week . You may remember these swaggering garage rockers from our October 2012 mix (their track "Get High" was a highlight). Shark Week's latest offering features a pair of bluesy, sunburnt grooves the four piece recorded in the Santurce neighborhood of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The a-side "Go West" is a propulsive, side-winding psych-rock track that burnishes sharp, glistening guitar riffs and throaty, snarling vocals. If you're looking for some lively, sun-drenched rock n' roll [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T14:58:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4957858/album-review-the-national-trouble-will-find-me/
The National, whose music many have labeled as gloomy, dark, and writhing with insecurities, stays the course with their latest, Trouble Will Find Me. But the biggest difference between this album and any previous is the band members have settled into themselves (the members ages now range from late thirties to early forties) and this comfort has eased tensions that would surface during the]]> text/html 2013-05-17T14:46:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4956418/atp-album-review-the-front-bottoms-talon-of-the/


In such a short space of time, The Front Bottoms have managed to acquire a cult following worldwide and tours with Motion City Soundtrack, Say Anything and Bad Books have only helped propel them into the limelight. With their self titled debut released in 2011, they really reinvented their genre. Laced with simplistic power chords, awkward lyrics and uptempo drums that sounds nothing like every other punk record. However, with any band's first album, they have the first part of their life to write it and only 2 years to rehash that formula and write the follow-up, will this ring [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T14:30:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4956376/album-review-letherette-letherette/
A fresh end to the week has come with the stunning tunes by Wolverhamptons duo Letherette from their debut self-titled album. Having been introduced to them last week by a work colleague, I have had this one on repeat to and from work, at home, on my runs and on the shitter.The problem with this is album, is there isn't a problem. I find myself pressing play and not wanting it to end. Twelve tracks in total, this album effortlessly rolls outsamples,complexities and layers that you envisage [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T14:30:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4956385/fell-voices-regnum-saturni/
Fell Voices bring together all their noise and racket to create a true work of art. - By Ryan Stephenson]]> text/html 2013-05-17T14:02:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4956333/album-reviews-charlie-boyer-and-the-voyeurs-clarietta/
With a debut single as buzz inducing as I Watch You, Charlie Boyer and the Voyeurs were always going to have to produce a pretty special album to meet the lofty expectations laid upon them. They showed they could deliver the goods with the infectious psych-rock of follow-up single and album opener Things We Be and, as it turns out, these tracks were just telling of the mastery Boyer et al. have had hidden up their vintage shop-embellished sleeves. Having already drawn endless comparisons to Television and Heavenly labelmates TOY perhaps a slightly lazy relation - [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T13:00:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4956271/sam-amidon-bright-sunny-south/
If you have an hour spare, give in to Amidon's world and picture yourself on a lonesome porch in the Appalachian mountains. It's good for the soul. By Martyn Coppack]]> text/html 2013-05-17T12:00:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4956136/nocando-tits-n-explosions/


Nocando Tits N Explosions Hellfyre Club: 2013 2010 was a banner year for a particular subset of Los Angeles hip-hop. It brought the release of Nocandos Jimmy the Lock and Open Mike Eagles Unapologetic Art Rap two debuts that delivered pure auditory fun, and promised great things to come. Open Mikes Unapologetic was probably the standout track of these two records. On this song, Eagle and Nocando traded hilarious verses over a propulsive, buzzing beat. On the hook, Open Mike rapped: I wont apologize for it/ This is not a [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T12:00:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4956177/kylesa-ultraviolet/
Kylesa's Ultraviolet is a glorious journey through light and dark, a psychedelic explosion of colour and sound. Enter with an open mind and prepare to be led in new directions. - By Phil Johnston]]> text/html 2013-05-17T11:00:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4956096/hiram-see-the-thing-within-the-thing/
Hiram offer up a tantalising view of what the future might hold but this release doesn't realise their full potential. - By John Sturm]]> text/html 2013-05-17T06:58:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4955744/the-fall-re-mit/


Re-Mit is going to absolutely terrify people. Its quite horrible. The Fall have had enough and were coming for you, announced Mark E. Smith in a recent interview. It was inevitable, of course, that this would provoke the assumption that Re-Mit was going to be a formidable continuation of the widely deplored Ersatz GB . But as the guitar lines of instrumental opener No Respects descend into a primitively pummelling groove - it almost sounds like a blithe paradox to the malevolent, disorderly brawl of [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T06:57:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4955745/mark-lanegan-and-duke-garwood-black-pudding/


Where to begin with Mark Lanegan s voice? Its a melted-down chainsaw. Soft beams of light shooting across a bubbling tar pit. A rusted tractor set ablaze amidst heavy downpour. Rich. Ragged. Ridiculous. Its also one of the most uniquely expressive voices in American music arguably similar to that of Tom Waits in its ability to extricate a sumptuously soulful croon from the sound of over-zealous vocal cord scrapings. But unlike the perma-hatted veteran, Lanegan never gives into the gnarl. Hes simply a vessel for sorrows that are resigned to [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T04:03:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4955596/album-review-the-national-trouble-will-find-me/
Confidence. Comfort in one's own skin. It's the difference between trying too hard and coming off as a fraud or following your own heart and rising to the top. Many a band waffles after success, making, instead, what they think the audience wants to hear. But with Trouble Will Find Me , The National' s sixth full-length studio albumoutlines the confidence to expand and experiment with the formula, paired with the skills to do it justice. That confidence is present from the opening salvo, where The National sets the tone and pace [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T04:02:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4955597/album-review-her-parents-happy-birthday/
On sophomore LP Happy Birthday, Her Parents bring a dismissive fury and gleeful idiocy to punk. The album zips by at 12 songs in 18 minutes, pushing a middle finger and a manic grin into your face with childish impudence, mocking you for dancing while providing the jams. They're clearly aware of that, to the extreme degree that there's even an infectious song called "Why Are You Hitting Yourself". "Your mother was a racist moody moo/spitting out kids from her loony womb," they sneer on "I Live In A Tree", one of many schoolyard taunts set [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T04:01:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4955598/album-review-mindless-self-indulgence-how-i-learned-to/
A few weeks back, Managing EditorJeremy Larson provided a thought-provoking feature on the moralization of music .For the past 16 years, Mindless Self Indulgence have created a cult following similarly examiningthemorals of Americans and popular music. Nowin his 40s, frontman Jimmy Urine continues his agitation of social standards on How I Learned to Stop Giving a Shit and Love Mindless Self Indulgence. When Tyler, TheCreator, the centralantagonistof Larson's piece, was onlynine years old, MSI was already generating criticism with "Faggot". Like Tyler, the intent was to shock; however,Urine'smessages were meant to shed [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T04:01:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4955599/album-review-mark-lanegan-and-duke-garwood-black-pudding/
The whiskey, blood, and holy water from last years estimable Blues Funeral had barely dried up when Mark Lanegan partnered with English bluesman Duke Garwood to record Black Pudding , an album that crawls, breathes, and refurbishes the acoustic blues of Lanegans early solo work. Here, as the shared billing suggests, Lanegans rugged voice and Garwoods delicate playing intend to speak to each other. Only part of the time, though, do the two seem to be participating in the same conversation. The trouble with Black Pudding [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T04:00:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4955619/album-review-jenny-hval-innocence-is-kinky/
That night, I watched people fucking on my computer. When these are the opening lines to your sophomore LP, youre setting quite the standard for yourself. Concerned, however, is as for as possible from how Jenny Hval sounds beginning Innocence is Kinky . Throughout modern popular music, more artists than one can fathom have structured song craft around that most blatant human desire: sex. Pop stars employ it to capture our basest tastes; Serge Gainsbourg made it an entertaining obsession, while the likes of R. Kelly make it deafening, bombastic celebration. Most immediately noticeable concerning Hvals new record, however, [...]]]> text/html 2013-05-17T03:23:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4955584/devendra-banhart-mala/


Mala, Devendra Banhart Nonesuch Records, USA Rating: 79 by Carlos Reyes The white savior complex is far from being a popular topic of discussion on Latin music forums, but when hipsters get together, it seems like no one is indifferent to the subject. I am Venezuelan. Do I represent Venezuelans? I dont knowI can barely represent myself. Although Devendra Banhart carries Venezuelan blood and lived his formative years in that country, the general perception (at least from those in Latin [...]]]>