It’s official: Long.Live.A$AP has been worth the wait. New York rapper A$AP Rocky was signed to the majors almost two years ago, and a road of scrapped projects and delayed release dates was all that followed. Everyone was ready to write him off before the spacey single “Goldie” was released last April, just in time…
Category: Album Reviews
Jeff Beam steps away from the Union for ‘Be Your Own Mirror’
Jeff Beam is one of those Portland staples who is difficult to not notice. You have seen him walking down Congress Street with the lanky stride of John Lennon crossing Abbey Road, perhaps you have even caught him pulling off a Hendrix-influenced solo at various bars around town. Chiseling away for years at his own artistic vision,…
Somewhere between Sonic Youth genius and Xtina, Lee Ranaldo falls short
For fans of Sonic Youth, Lee Ranaldo’s ninth studio album Between the Times and the Tides will be very familiar territory. Don’t look here for an ultra-modern update of the hyper-loud and noise-ridden experimentation of the Daydream Nation days. Instead what you will find is Ranaldo wandering through his comfort zones with ten assemblages of hazy noise and sappy love-rock standards….
Springsteen comes to the frontline the 17th time around
Bruce Springsteen has always spoken for America’s unheard voices, from the love-torn rock operas in 1975’s Born to Run, to the American Dream-turned-broken nightmare of 1984’s Born in the U.S.A. After witnessing and retelling the effects of a wayward nation for decades, The Boss now assumes the roles of judge and jury to accuse “all them fat cats” with…
Of midwest moonshine in Great Western Plain’s ‘Mustache Eye Patch’
Despite their residency in the Pine Tree State, Great Western Plain encapsulates those expansive west-of-Mississippi flats that stretch from Texas to Canada in sublime isolation. With their sophomore release Mustache Eye Patch, the Portland trio lets their frustrations loose like a drunken twister in Kansas. Mustache Eye Patch is a recipe for the perfect cowboy garage rock record,…
The science of Mango Floss and ‘Semper Augustus’
Picture Albert Einstein alive and well in 2012, joining Portland’s indie rock scene to propose his theory of indie-rock relativity: a carefully engineered theory seeking a fresh approach to a tried-and-tired music genre that combines science theory and sci-fi monsters with catchy hits. Semper Augustus, the new album from Portland indie-pop trio Mango Floss, would…
Air to the moon in ‘Le Voyage Dans La Lune’
Pop-weavers Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin boldly tackle science fiction as French electronic duo Air, providing the vessel for a spaced-out experiment with their seventh studio album Le Voyage Dans La Lune. Le Voyage Dans La Lune is a concept album inspired by Georges Méliès’ “A Trip to the Moon,” a French silent film from 1902 in which a group of astronauts ride a…
Leonard Cohen faces mortality in ‘Old Ideas’
Leonard Cohen used to think he “was some kind of gypsy boy,” traveling those spaces between his heart and his soul on his long voyage through romantic and spiritual strife. Now at 77-years-old, the Canadian singer-songwriter is preparing for his final journey at the end of life with his latest album Old Ideas. Old Ideas…
Cloud Nothings bring in Albini for ‘Attack On Memory’
It would have been so easy for Dylan Baldi’s next Cloud Nothings album to follow the tried-and-true trajectory that he had been steadily carving out since 2010’s self-released Turning On — and it would have been welcome. 2010’s pop indebted Turning On was a heavily work-shopped collection of slightly-off kilter alt-punk in the vein of…
A farewell to Marie Stella in ‘from’
Here it is: the nearly three-year career span of of Marie Stella — one of Portland’s most predominant live acts — condensed into an appropriately modest six tracks. It shouldn’t surprise many that the final release from the forward thinking noise-pop four-piece ended up being an odds-and-ends collection from a series of recordings that was…
Battick embraces dusty traditionalism with ‘Bloodworm Songs’
In 1982, Bruce Springsteen released “Nebraska,” a bleak and unforgiving album that drove his tales of backwoods suburban romanticism deeper into the psyche. To this day, the album is still considered one of his best in a career full of exceptional releases, for not only continuing Springsteen’s narratives of blue-collar America but also by embracing…
With progression, Atmosphere flourishes
The underground hip-hop community has many shining stars, and for the last decade Atmosphere has been a front runner in the scene. MC Slug and producer Ant have consistently provided hard hitting hip-hop for their fans, and their new album, “The Family Sign,” is no exception. The album differs greatly from its 2008 predecessor “When…
‘No Devolución’ has Thursday evolving once again
In Spanish, the phrase “No Devolución” means “no returns.” As the title of Thursday’s newest album, that is exactly what they promise. Since the release of their first album, the post-hardcore classic “Waiting,” Thursday have evolved musically into what feels like an entirely different band, though the majority of members have stayed intact. Over the…
Another year, another live 1960s Bob Dylan record
To the casual listener it might be difficult to believe the American folk icon Bob Dylan has had a career past the 1960s. Countless deluxe reissues, box sets, biographies and Rolling Stone articles have reduced an over 50 year career into an isolated span of seven years between the release of his 1962 eponymous debut…
‘Tomboy’ has Panda Bear rediscovering beauty
Four years later, Panda Bear returns to a musical landscape eerily similar to 2007 with his newest LP “Tomboy.” With the failed imitators hanging onto their last breaths, Panda Bear picks up in the same place where he left off years earlier: creating another masterpiece of childlike innocence, melancholy and sun-drenched, hushed spirituality.
Khalifa rolls up the soundtrack to your party with ‘Rolling Papers’
Ultimately, Khalifa will do well commercially, giving him financial success. He certainly has the ability to write great songs, he’ll just have to decide between staying commercially successful or trying to to delve deeper within himself and find something more worthy of credible success.
Foam Castles broaden influences, psychedelics in new EP
Tyler Jackson and company once again delve into the self-self-conscious with “Come Over To My House” an EP that, while extraordinarily short at four tracks, is an exceptional reminder of why Foam Castles continues to be one of Portland’s most remarkably diverse bands.
Fiasco was right: ‘Lasers’ disapoints
Lupe has long been recognized as a front runner in today’s hip-hop world due to his lyrical skill and delivery, yet even the best artists run into trouble. It isn’t fair to call this album “bad,” but this is a prime example of what happens when a talented artist finds themselves backed into a corner by contracts and label complications.
The Strokes from a different angle
When a band releases three well received albums in a span of only six years, one has to wonder where they’ll go next.
With anticipation through the roof, The Strokes took a much needed break in 2006 after the release of their second album, “First Impressions of Earth.” Now, a few solo albums and plenty of vacation time later, the Strokes are back with the release of “Angles,” their first new album in over five years.
Former-Chiodos frontman returns with new D.R.U.G.S.
In the 2004-2006 post-hardcore boom, Chiodos was a big deal. Their ability to combine operatic orchestration with metal guitar riffs set them apart from other bands, and their vocalist Craig Owens was an outlier in this otherwise very generic scene. Since his departure from Chiodos, fans have been eagerly waiting to hear something new from…
‘The King Of Limbs’ succeeds only as a caricature
Somber, uninteresting and ultimately sleep-inducing. Since Radiohead’s debut 18 years ago with “Pablo Honey,” these are a few terms that detractors of the UK art-rock outfit have used consistently. But now, with Radiohead’s newest release “The King of Limbs,” they might be right for the first time. The album’s shortcomings were evident to even the…
Radiohead is back and brilliant as ever
Radiohead is playing with my emotions. In 2009, always cryptic front man Thom Yorke nearly brought me to tears after mentioning that Radiohead probably wouldn’t release another full length album. Apparently, he just meant that they were focusing more on releasing shorter EPs. This Valentine’s Day, it was announced that a new album, entitled “The…
Red Medicine’s debut does DIY right
Red Medicine’s eponymous debut album is a progressive and razor sharp trek through the last twenty years of experimental rock music. These University of Maine at Farmington kids cut a wide swath through the legacies of math-rock and post-hardcore, picking up whatever strikes their fancy along the way and re-combining it all into a wildly…
The ‘surrealist madness’ of Portland’s Id M Theft Able
Id M Theft Able, arguably Portland’s most prominent noise musician, has a swirling blur of a sound that is as disorienting as it is fascinating. He builds massive sonic barrages out of samples from discarded twenty-five cent LPs, spastic vocal improvisation and heavily manipulated cassette recordings. This is the sort of Noise (With a capital…