It’s always a toss-up which style of guitar music John Dwyer and his rotating cast of Osees collaborators will lean into with each new album. Last time it was hardcore, but sometimes it’s prog or […]
jaimie branch: Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war))
Midway through “burning grey,” from her riotous third and final album Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)), jaimie branch issues an exhortation that could serve as her artistic mission statement: […]
A Giant Dog: Bite
A Giant Dog’s Bite, the Austin, Texas, group’s first batch of new material since 2017’s Toy, bills itself as a concept album, but Avalonia (the invented realm in which the action takes place) bears little difference […]
ovrkast.: RESET! EP
Oakland rapper-producer ovrkast. thrives on elegant beats that split the difference between hazy, traditionalist boom-bap and the wavy, loop-based production that’s taken the rap underground by storm since Madlib’s Quasimoto days. After years of Bandcamp […]
Drab Majesty: An Object in Motion
Drab Majesty have always reached for other worlds. The title of their 2012 debut EP, Unarian Dances, was a reference to a cult of UFO obsessives who broadcast bizarre films on public access TV in […]
Victoria Monét: Jaguar II
The jaguar sneaks up on you. Victoria Monét can relate. One day you could audition for a Darkchild-sponsored girl group that never got off the ground, and nine years later, you could be a celebrated […]
The Armed: Perfect Saviors
Oh, the irony of transforming into action figures only to get scooped by Barbie. For all the promotional and physical muscle the Armed have flexed during the rollout of their own summer blockbuster, none of […]
Fiddlehead: Death Is Nothing to Us
An inevitable part of the grieving process is realizing that you’re not, in fact, done grieving. Have Heart frontman and hardcore lifer Pat Flynn lost his dad, a Vietnam veteran and high-school English teacher, in […]
Hozier: Unreal Unearth
The blues-rock power ballad “Take Me to Church” was not just Hozier’s breakout hit, but the kind of epochal debut that renders the ensuing career an afterword. It had a raw, rude edge that won […]
Diners: Domino
Across Domino’s twenty-five minutes, Blue Broderick wanders through a Los Angeles beach, makes a plan to address the leaks in her bedroom ceiling, and idly waves a pen over an empty notebook. It’s her sixth […]
Hiss Golden Messenger: Jump for Joy
M.C. Taylor is no stranger to alter egos. It could be argued that Hiss Golden Messenger, the name of the loose collective he’s fronted since 2008, is a nom de plume itself. Cloaking his fears […]
Spellling: Spellling & the Mystery School
As SPELLLING, Chrystia Cabral dances the line between straightforward dream pop and aquatic, experimental electronic folk, creating music that both roils the soul and inspires whimsical daydreams. She expanded upon her tactile sound on 2021’s […]