Tag Archives: music-album-reviews

One of the funniest lines in Amy Poehler’s new movie Wine Country is when Paula Pell tells Rachel Dratch that her soul’s age is around 18-and-a-half. “Probably old enough to drink and bone … almost out of the house.” It’s a sentiment Carly Rae Jepsen can certainly relate to. The …

Farruko, Gangalee | ★★★ Karol G, Ocean| ★★★ All eyes are on the globe-trotting exploits of the Bad Bunny’s and the Balvin’s, but it’s actually Farruko, a 28-year-old Puerto Rican rapper-singer, who has the year’s biggest Latin hit so far. That would be his remix of Pedro Capó’s “Calma,” a …

Timothy Showalter is ready to put away childish things, or at least sing about it. Over the past decade, the singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist has made his mark as the mastermind auteur behind the blissed out jams and shaggy rock mythmaking of Strand of Oaks. “I was lonely,” he sang on the cautious …

The past half-decade of country music has often felt like one extended response to Florida Georgia Line’s 2012 hit, “Cruise,” which ushered in the wave of escapist fantasies set to syncopated drum loops that became known as “bro country.” Lately, though, the party’s more or less ended, as country has …

Future’s reign was always unsustainable. For nearly a decade, Nayvadius Wilburn played a Kirkwood, Atlanta, underdog-turned-villain with many names: Super Future, Future Hendrix, Fire Marshal Future, Astronaut Kid, Pluto. His alter egos sang, rapped and growled stories of drug addiction, poverty and proud misogyny, a toxic but alluring mixture that …

Rhett Miller was a folkie of sorts before co-launching country-punk-pop heroes Old ‘97s, and befitting a Texan raised in country music’s cradle, he’s got a knack for perfectly-turned lines. “Did I lose you at ‘I love you’?,” he sings on his latest solo set, as immaculately plainspoken as a Harlan …

Do you like scary movies? Sorry, let’s be more specific. Do you like scary movies scored by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke? Well, you’re in luck, kid: Don’t look now, but there’s one right behind you! AAAAAAAAHH!!!!! Yorke’s soundtrack for the new remake of the cult-classic Seventies horror flick Suspiria isn’t a …

The twentieth album from this Australian longform jazz institution swerves from their 30-year career of gorgeous ambient washes and fragile improv interplay, instead opting for muscle and hypnosis. This nearly 57-minute piece is held together by drummer Tony Buck’s right arm, which taps out ride-cymbal eighth notes while the band …

Ariana Grande is determined to be a light on her fourth album. And no one has needed that light more than Grande herself. The last year has marked a tumultuous, even transformative, period for the 25-year-old pop superstar. In May, 2017, her concert in Manchester, England was the site of …

When Guns N’ Roses exploded from the Sunset Strip with lyrics like, “West Coast struttin’, one bad mutha, got a rattlesnake suitcase under my arm,” they were a vision of piss n’ vinegar at a time when Steve Winwood was topping the charts. Apart from Axl Rose‘s mile-high coiffure, Appetite …