Blood on the Wall - Awesomer

Blood on the Wall
Awesomer

Rating: 9.0/10.0
Recommended Tracks: 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14
RiYL: Pixies, Sonic Youth

If Blood on the Wall’s sophomore album was merely awesome, they would have told you. They would have put it right on the spine. They’re straightforward people. Instead, it’s a more-than-just-awesome barrage of the catchiest late 80’s-era garage/alternative this side of the Pixies’ Doolittle. They’re just being honest. Read the rest of this entry »

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Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs

Yo La Tengo
Popular Songs

Rating: 8.2/10.0
Recommended Tracks: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6
RiYL: Sonic Youth, Guided by Voices, Motown

Yo La Tengo (YLT) loves popular music. During its 25-year-long career, it’s written 216 original songs and released nearly 100 covers. Its nearly encyclopedic knowledge of pop-music history, from the bourgeois to the absurd, is one of its defining features. In its latest venture, Popular Songs, Yo La Tengo manages to corral that knowledge into a cohesive statement, relentlessly rediscovering the history of pop music and rewriting it in their image. Yo La Tengo wants to remind us of the days in which pop music wasn’t necessarily garbage, when melody and craftsmanship were the focus instead of Autotune and showmanship. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed

The Mountain Goats
We Shall All Be Healed

Rating: 9.6/10.0
Recommended Tracks: All! If you need sneak a peek check out 2, 4, 7, 8, 10, or 12.
RiYL: Awesome folk-rock, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Dodos, Okkervil River, M. Ward, The Shins, John Vanderslice

With John Darnielle’s improbable return to Dallas and the prospect of more annual visits, I felt it a good time to shine some light on a personal favorite from The Mountain Goats discography – 2004’s We Shall All Be Healed. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Antlers - Hospice

The Antlers
Hospice

Rating: 8.8/10.0
Recommended Tracks: 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10
RiYL: Low, Okkervil River, Grizzly Bear

Life-changing experiences are fairly rare. Most people manage to live their lives without the impact of some devastating and unexpected interpersonal tragedy. Despite this, the majority still tend to spin tiny dramas from their everyday ups and downs: the two-week relationship, the countdown to the last day of finals, getting wisdom teeth pulled, etc. At the same time, the dramatic expression is becoming easier and easier to create. It seems as if literature became cinema became television became blogs became twitter until a billion little nano dramas almost completely ate away your empathy and attention span. Read the rest of this entry »

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