album reviews
Joe Jackson
The Duke Razor & Tie
On this Duke Ellington tribute, Eighties star (and longtime jazz dabbler) Joe Jackson interprets the great composer's classics via his own sophisti-pop style, jettisoning horns entirely on a series of crisp arrangements. Iggy Pop coils himself around a lounge-y "It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)," Questlove drives a hard-swinging "Rockin' In Rhythm," and Jackson’s own rendition of "I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)" is movingly subtle. Even ... | More »
The Gaslight Anthem
Handwritten Mercury
"Have you seen my heart?" asks Brian Fallon on the Gaslight Anthem's fourth album. "Have you seen how it bleeds?" Have we ever. There is no shortage of earnest anthemic rock in the 21st century, but no one wears their bleeding hearts on their sleeves quite like Fallon and his mates. Gaslight aren't regal like Coldplay or Arcade Fire; on their major-label debut they remain proudly provincial New Jersey punks, who sing about deep feelings with a sincerity that could make Bono blush.Ha... | More »
Glen Hansard
Rhythm and Repose Anti-
Love = drama + melodrama on Glen Hansard's moonstruck solo debut, as it is in his songs for the breakout film-turned-musical Once, and for his bands The Frames and the Swell Season. "I want to do what's right," he sings on "Maybe Not Tonight," adorably ready not to, conjuring the Seventies country-pop vibe of Glen Campbell around stock images: pretty eyes, an August night, "the long grass where we lay." More striking are the unsettling string arrangements by a coterie of indie-rock/... | More »
Nas
Life Is Good Def Jam
Nas appears on the cover of his 10th LP holding the wedding dress of ex-wife Kelis. But this is no Drake-style sob story. It's just that nowadays, he cuts his rhymes with midlife realism and daring empathy ("Could you imagine writing your deposition/Divorce lawyer telling how this going to be ending," he raps on "Bye Baby"). Nas discourses on parenting ("Daughters") and senseless violence ("Accidental Murderers," with Rick Ross), and shreds any doubts about his MC prowess ("The Don") ove... | More »
Baroness
Yellow & Green Relapse
This Georgia metal band's most accessible record is this sprawling, 75-minute double album. The edges are smoother and the choruses more pronounced than before, but they're still as marauding and feral as ever. The Yellow disc is more immediate ("March to the Sea" is Fugazi via Rush); Green is artier, stretching filmy guitars across monk-like vocals. It adds up to a thrilling hard-rock epic.Related• Photos: Random Notes | More »
Silver Jews
Early Times Drag City
Originally released as the "Dime Map of the Reef" single and The Arizona Record EP, this collects the grotty indie-strum laid down in Jersey City during the first Bush administration by Pavementers Steve Malkmus and Bob Nastonovitch and their UVA buddy David Berman. Pavement nerds might know the Southern spell "Secret Knowledge of Backroads" from a Peel session, but the rest of this cryptic urk, the mystery of which made SM's other band seem like Kardashians by comparison, has been... | More »
Jeff the Brotherhood
Hypnotic Nights Warner Brothers
There are two songs on the new Jeff the Brotherhood album with the word “hypnotic” in the title. It’s truth in advertising: This drums-guitar duo of Tennessee brothers know how to zone out – from the two-chord scuzz-Ramones blitz of “Staring At the Wall” to Weezerian sludge-pop like “Dark Energy” to “Hypnotic Winter,” where drummer Jamin Orrall’s Kraut-rock pulse undergirds singer-guitarist Jake’s driving trance-strum. Hy... | More »
Zac Brown Band
Uncaged Southern Ground/Atlantic
As an unkempt, self-contained septet conquering country's clean-cut, studio-musician world, Zac Brown Band are easy to root for. But the band's third LP, Uncaged, sounds, well, caged: plenty of polite back-porch bluegrass picking, antiseptic mountain harmonies, a pair of lowcalorie attempts at Caribbean lilt with mushily sentimental lyrics about drifting like the river and the wind. Listen to "Colder Weather": Related• Photos: Random Notes | More »
Chris Brown
Fortune RCA
Brown's fifth LP sounds great on the surface: "Bassline" is based on an elegant dubstep wobble, and his vocal on "Stuck on Stupid" matches its midtempo grandeur. But deep listening means getting cozy with a guy so reviled mosquitoes won’t bite him; Brown brags about his extra-large condoms, and, on "Don’t Judge Me," turns a tender love song into a Twitter rant against "haters." It will have a broad audience. Listen to 'Fortune' Related• Photos: Random Notes | More »
Alejandro Escovedo
Big Stage Fantasy/Concord
"Dylan dropped acid in the limelight," sings Tex-Mex singer-songwriter Alejandro Escovedo on "Headstrong Crazy Fools," savoring the recklessness of youth with a James Jamerson bass line and a Lou Reed rhyme scheme. Escovedo nods to his forebears here, as on 2008's Real Animal. "Bottom of the World" and "San Antonio Rain" echo "Queen Jane Approximately" and "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," young Dylan's means applied to different e... | More »
Music Reviews
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star ratingOverexposed -
star ratingLiving Things -
star ratingDays Go By
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star ratingWrite Me Back -
star ratingKing Tuff -
star ratingHa Ha I’m Sorry EP
Photos & Videos
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