Reviews

Album Review: Primitive and Deadly – EARTH

0003333087_10 [LISTEN] [Label: Southern Lord] [Date Released: September 2, 2014] [Genre: Experimental / Doom Metal / Drone] Tones bright as bells ringing in a hazy distance comfort as the path winds down from the mountain into the valley dark below. Sonic glory. On...

Album Review: Les Sins – Michael

ad31ff04 [LISTEN] [Label: Company Records] [Date Released: November 4, 2014] [Genre: Electronic / Dance] This month marks the release of Chaz Bundick’s first full-length album under the title Les Sins. Although he has been quietly releasing music under this name for the past four years, this is the first...

Show Review: Mac Demarco @ Rio Theatre 11/14/14

IMG_6800 First of all, I’ve always liked Mac Demarco’s song writing from the first time I heard his sophomore album “2.” There’s a sort of sentimental quality to his songs that is at once nostalgic for the times when music was purely about emotion rather than stoic or...

Album Review: Pom Pom – Ariel Pink

535_c_w_450_h_450 [LISTEN]   [Label:4 AD] [Date Released: November 17, 2014] [Genre: Lo-Fi, Indie Pop,Synth Pop ] Every realm of music can call to mind a certain oddball character—a court jester or sound clown that helps round out the soundscape by mixing in a healthy dose of eccentricity and irreverence...

Show Review: Twin Steps, Genuis, & Pregnant @ Third Space 11/5/14

IMG_1479 Third Space Art Collective was the venue, a cozy, unassuming warehouse shortly off campus. Inside a traffic cone chandelier hung from the rafters splashing the stage with an orange hue, and Christmas lights were vibrantly tangled along the stage floor.  How’s that sound?   Daniel Trudeau of Sacramento-based...

Album Review: VI: Flora – Botanist

flora [LISTEN] [Label: The Flenser] [Release Date: August 11, 2014] [Genre: Green Metal] Representing a different sort of black metal from their elitist Norwegian forerunners, San Francisco's group Botanist conveys a message that is inherently not destructive but productive or even regenerative, making it more akin to "post-black metal" one...

Album Review: Alm – Taylor Kohl

alm [LISTEN]       [WATCH]        [Released March 27, 2014] [Genre: experimental/chiptune/shoegaze/pop] My introduction to Mr. Kohl was a little unusual, at least for my typical foraging patterns into the blackest corners of the Internet (I digress, but I really do love that depressive Norwegian stuff). I...