Category: Reviews

Rewind Review: Failure – The Heart Is a Monster (2015)

Coming eighteen years after their (at the time) overlooked masterpiece, Fantastic Planet, Failure‘s The Heart Is a Monster picks up where Fantastic Planet (and the 1990s) ended. Ken Andrews, Greg Edwards, and Kellii Scott created an album in 2015 that linked to their past (and the past of their fans) and also showed what a stunning future could be had if we all came together and chose to pursue it.

Opening with the instrumental “Segue 4” (again, picking up after “Segue 3” on Fantastic Planet), The Heart Is a Monster jumps up in volume and beat with “Hot Traveler” – a song about begging for forgiveness after an accidental wrong (“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I had to make a snap move, but now I see your purpose.”). The powerful Failure guitars, soaring synths, and sharp drum chops are all here right away, assuring fans that Andrews, Edwards, and Scott hadn’t lost anything in over a decade – and in fact had only grown in power. “A.M. Amnesia” is a stand-out, which Scott pounding hard beats and drilling fills that make your jaw drop while Andrews and Edwards sing about a woman who exists in both darkness (“You were born on the bottom of the ocean.”) and in the the infinite light of space. Cosmic space is a common theme in Failure’s work, and it’s great to hear them continue to explore that theme on this record.

“Snow Angel” has a heavy, almost doom groove to it, which makes me wish Failure would make a doom metal record. The groaning, squealing guitar of “Atom City Queen” only reinforces that wish. “Counterfeit Sky,” a song about realizing most of your problems (if not all of them) are self-inflicted, has layers of Andrews’ and Edwards’ guitars constantly switching with Scott’s drums for the lead.

I can’t help but wonder if “Petting the Carpet” is a sequel to their classic song “The Nurse Who Loved Me,” which contains the lyrics, “Say hello to the rug’s topography. It holds quite a lot of interest with your face down on it.” “Petting the Carpet” starts with the lyrics, “Petting the carpet. Saliva flows strong.” Both songs blaze with sun-bright guitar chords and thick bass. “Mulholland Dr.” blends sci-fi themes of aliens and mutants with trippy “Sgt. Pepper’s”-era Beatles chords (courtesy of Troy Van Leeuwen – who was in Failure for a short time and went on to become a full-time member of Queens of the Stone Age).

“Fair Light Era,” with its lyrics of “What’s all this space junk? These gems behind my eyes?” might be a sly reference to the “one hundred stones that sparkle in darkness” on Fantastic Planet‘s “Sgt. Politeness.” “Come Crashing” hits with crashing cymbals and power chords before it drops, weightless, into “Segue 7,” and then “The Focus” kicks open the door with a killer bass line that isn’t screwing around. The guitars on “Otherwhere” sound like the calls of robotic birds of prey. “I Can See Houses” tells a haunting tale of a man, possibly Andrews, seeing the world fall away from him as the airplane he’s on rises into the sky and he realizes he has to let go of things binding him to earthly illusions. The album closes with “Segue 9” to leave us in a trippy headspace.

The Heart Is a Monster was a great return for Failure, who have since released three more albums, will begin another tour, and have a documentary film about the band coming soon. Go to space with them. You’ll come back changed.

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t fail to subscribe!]

Review: Emily Jane White – Alluvion

Emily Jane White‘s new album, Alluvion, might win the award for the Most Accurate Cover Image of the Year. Ms. White stands on a stark beach surrounded by towering rocks and watched over by a blue sky that you can only see at certain moments during dusk. She appears to be holding, or perhaps projecting, a single light in the gothic landscape. Her black dress melds into the water and mud below her feet and reflects her image below her, as if she arose from this salty, sandy, chilled landscape like a ghost searching for a lover whose ship crashed on the pictured shore.

And the whole album sounds like this image – haunting synths, cold-wave beats, and White’s alluring, hypnotic vocals.

On “Show Me the War,” White sings about “life’s blood raining down on me” while she craves for explanations and reasons behind the chaos she sees in the world every day. “Crepuscule” is a song about loss and embracing the grief when it hits so hard (“This mourning lives in everyone who has lost someone. Aurora in lightning, the living and the dying.”). The sparse guitar notes in it are perfect. “Heresy” is full of stark piano and White’s vocals sliding around you like a cold wind that signals an approaching storm.

“Poisoned” takes on a goth-western feel with echoed guitars and countrified beats while White sings about a friend carrying grief that she recognizes as they walked through “harm drenched fields.” “Body Against the Gun” is about a friend having to flee to another state for a medical procedure and White remembering her upbringing “in light so dim with those who sang assailing hymns.”

White calls out to a higher power on “The Hands Above Me,” a lovely gothic track of longing for peace and understanding (“Gonna write a note to the hands above me. Gonna ask them on which side do they air.”). “Mute Swan” is a song about carrying the wounds of a relationship gone, probably caused by a death (judging from White’s lyrics about how even uttering her lover’s name causes her pain).

“Hold Them Alive,” while sounding bleak, is actually uplifting if you examine the lyrics. White sings about carrying loss, and the physical and mental wounds of it, with grace through life and remembering the love that was there: “The flora and fauna, incantations surround you. It lives in a stark liminal space within you.” The love is there, disguised as grief. “Hollow Earth” has the peppiest beats on the album, but it doesn’t lose any of the heavy themes of loss and longing.

“I Spent the Years Frozen” is a powerful track about desire and how it can so intensely burn that it might consume you. The quick fade-out is like someone blowing out a candle flame. “Battle Call” ends the album with lyrics of hope, of being able to rise up from the mud and heal from scars on our bodies and our souls.

Ms. White isn’t screwing around. She’s here to entrance us and be a guiding light out of a murky darkness (See the album cover?). She’s been there. She’s found the tricky, sometimes treacherous path out of the swamp, and Alluvion is a map to dry land and brighter skies.

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe before you go.]

[Thanks to Monica at Speakeasy PR.]

Review: Primer – Incubator

Alyssa Midcalf, otherwise known as Primer, to you and I disguises songs about heartbreak and depression inside lovely new wave and pop hooks on her new album, Incubator – so named because many of these songs began their life before she was even twenty-years-old.

“Welcome to your life,” Midcalf sings on the opening track, “Impossible Thoughts,” which hooks you right away with its synth bass and beats. She’s welcoming us to our lives and the brief, yet intimate look at hers. “The world is ending, by the way. I accept it, but I don’t want to live that way,” she sings. She wrote that lyric, I’m fairly certain, about a break-up she experienced not long before finalizing the album, but one can’t help but put that lyric onto everything happening around us right now.

“Just a Clown” is a fun tongue-in-cheek poke at herself, as Midcalf discusses the hustle of being an artist and how you’re always setting yourself up for potential failure. “I can’t believe it has come to this. I am just a clown, and I’ll never win,” she says. Haven’t we all be there? Yes, but we haven’t all been there with the lovely dream pop beats Midcalf puts down on the track.

A groovy bass line uplifts the blue lyrics of her break-up on “If You Need Me,” taking the track to disco floor bliss. “Giving Up” builds with bright synth chords to become something that sounds like a happy kid skipping down the sidewalk, even as Midcalf sings heavy lyrics about waking from “a nightmare I constructed inside.”

“Things Fall Apart” has a swagger to it that seems to indicate that Midcalf was getting her feet back under her after the break-up dropped her to the mat. “Every day, I ask myself how do I live with the pain…”, she says, but she also knows she’s doing it. She’s able to move forward, even if only a little bit at a time. “Hypercube” is a flat-out industrial banger that will flood dance floors in clubs found behind metal doors in obscure alleys.

“I will never feel the same way that I did at that time in my life,” Midcalf sings on the heartbreaking “Anything,” a song about being desperate for love and willing to sacrifice whatever it takes for it. “Feel the Way I Do” is a love song for robots (judging from it’s cyber-beats and electro-bass) that practice magic. Midcalf sings about a strange thing inside of her that she wishes her lover could feel so they’d understand her love / anguish.

“You” starts off with android bees happily moving around in a bio-dome on a spaceship drifting past a gas giant planet. Midcalf sings about lying awake at nights missing her lover, but soon realizing “It never had a thing to do with you.” She’s the one who can control her response to the situation, and she does it with skillful synthwave. She’s reclaimed her life and heart on “Warning,” in which she sings, “I’m never gonna feel that way for you again.” while she dances around to her peppy beats.

It’s clear by the end of Incubator that Midcalf has grown from her experience, and perhaps we can grow with her if we’re willing.

Keep your mind open.

[I’m primed for you to subscribe.]

[Thanks to Gabriel at Clandestine Label Services.]

Review: Alien Lizard – Lucid Dream Machine

Blending words from Phillip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, Edgar Allan Poe, and other famous authors and thinkers with shoegaze, synthwave, and fuzz-rock, Alien Lizard‘s Lucid Dream Machine has a perfect name for its effect on you.

The instrumental “Terminal” starts off the album sounding like it was recorded in a steel mill owned by My Bloody Valentine. “Lotus Eaters” is eastern-tinged psychedelia with guitars that sound like bees working in the aforementioned steel mill. “Obserwacja Obserwatora” is even trippier, bringing Brian Jonestown Massacre tracks to mind as it winds around you like a sexy snake.

“Los Naranjos” loops acoustic Spanish guitar riffs around synths that remind me of fog horns. I can relate to “Sympathy for the Luddite,” as I am a bit of one, and I love the dreamy, hazy vocals. They remind me of some Love & Rockets tunes with Daniel Ash‘s vocals. “Eyes Eye the I in You” is a smoky instrumental, and “The Bird” is a slow, almost languid, track that could’ve been a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club tune in a previous life.

“Romantyczność” takes you into a strange headspace with strange, droning guitar chords, and the closing track, “Wombat 9,” takes you out of that headspace and into a dreamspace for over seven minutes- thus, the title of this album. The whole thing is like a dream that leaves you thinking about it for the rest of the day.

Keep your mind open.

[I dream that you’ll subscribe today.]

[Thanks to Alien Lizard.]

Rewind Review: The Smithereens – 2011 (2011)

Saluting the past and embracing the current moment, The Smithereens‘ 2011 album, 2011, is a nod to their classic 11 album and was their first album of all-original material since 1999’s God Save the Smithereens. It was a fine return to form with catchy hooks, heartfelt lyrics, and ample shredding.

Take the opener, “Sorry,” for example. Jim Babjak‘s powerful guitars come at you right away and Pat Dinizio‘s strong vocals about being both sad and angry about a breakup show he’d lost none of his chops. “One Look at You” is the opposite in terms of lyrical content, as Dinizio tells the story of swooning after once glance at a lady, but keeps up the snappy beats by Dennis Diken and solid bass work by Severo Jornacion. “A World of Our Own” is the kind of song that The Smithereens do so well – toe-tapping beats, lyrics about love, Beach Boys-like harmonies, and chugging garage rock guitars.

“Don’t listen to the things they say, you just take my hand and we’ll just keep on running,” Dinizio tells his lover on the solid, strong “Keep on Running.” The whole band is firing on all cylinders here, working in great union with each other as Babjak’s guitar seems to melt and solidify from one note to the next in his solo. “Rings on Her Fingers” could’ve been a Beau Brummels song in a previous life.

“As Long As You Are Near Me” has what I’d consider a “classic” Babjack guitar solo – somewhat bluesy, somewhat gritty, and all shredding (and Jornacion’s walking bass line sounds like it’s easy to play but is deceptively tricky once you examine it). “Bring Back the One I Love” has Dinizio lamenting a lover who left him. Jornacion’s bass takes front stage on “Nobody Lives Forever,” giving the song a pulse you can’t ignore.

The haunting “Goodnight Goodbye” has great vocals from the whole band and this almost doom metal pace to it that I love. It’s a standout on the record. “All the Same” displays the band’s love of the Mersey Beat sound. “Viennese Hangover” belongs in a romantic comedy that takes place in Austria. Diken’s drums are in fifth gear on “Turn It Around,” and the added tambourine and jingle bells only increase the punch. The closer, “What Went Wrong,” sends us off on a fast note like a hot rod not bothering to slow down after it crosses the finish line in a street race.

2011 showed that The Smithereens still had plenty of fire in them, and it still sounds good eleven years later.

Keep your mind open.

[Your e-mail inbox is sorry you haven’t yet subscribed.]

Review: Jon Hopkins – Music for Psychedelic Therapy

How do you follow up releasing two records of house music, club beats, and dub tracks? If you’re Jon Hopkins, you do it by releasing Music for Psychedelic Therapy – a gorgeous record of ambient meditations that doesn’t have a single beat on it.

As Hopkins said in the liner notes from the press release I received for this album, “I feel I explored that particular sound (house and club music) as much as I could. Next, I wanted to make something that faced the opposite direction, something very far away from a cosmic party or a set of festival-ready bangers…Something looking inwards, something egoless, with no attempts made to ‘fit in.’ It felt like time for a total reset, to wait for music to appear from a different place.” 

I don’t think I can put it better than that, and this album is already difficult to describe. It’s more of an experience than a record. “Welcome” sets you up for chakra alignment and to get you into your meditation space. After that follow three tracks called “Tayos Caves, Ecuador,” which put you into a cool, quiet place suitable for dreaming, sleeping, or the “total reset” he mentioned.

The entire record is a reset for whatever is bothering you at the time. “Love Flows Over Us in Prismatic Waves” feels like light hitting you through a window as you watch a rabbit bounce across your lawn. “Deep in the Glowing Heart” reflects the place we all hope to find and reside in at some point in our lives, hopefully in this plane and the next. These are the first two tracks of a thirty-five-minute uninterrupted journey that continues with the hopeful “Ascending, Dawn Sky,” the cosmic energy-tinged “Arriving,” and the beautiful, tear-inducing “Sit Around the Fire” – in which music is set to a recording of the spiritualist Ram Dass.

It’s a record that’s stunning with its simplicity and subtlety. Let it calm and warm you.

Keep your mind open.

[Why not subscribe while you’re here?]

[Thanks to Jessica at Domino Records.]

Review: BODEGA – Broken Equipment

BODEGA, the Brooklyn post-punk outfit, has long been fascinated with technology and all its goods and ills. Their new album, Broken Equipment, references this many times, first in the album’s title. Broken gear is a source of worry, anguish, and / or rage in this day and age due to our over-dependence on technology. BODEGA knows this, and openly discuss how they, too, fall victim to these glitchy woes.

Opening track (and the first single released from the album), “Thrown,” has lead singer Ben Hozie singing about how he has a Bermuda Triangle within him that sucks him into situations where he’s not sure how he got there or how to get out (“I was thrown here by chance…I was targeted by big rock ads…”). “Doers” is a poke in the eye of tech-bros and people who think their moving and shaking is actually going to amount to something in the grand scheme (“Ten minutes planning my next ten minutes!”).

“Territorial Call of the Female” has Nikki Belfiglio taking on lead vocals, which always means you’re in for a treat. Belfiglio’s vocals are often a great mix of snarky and sweet, and this track about ladies sometimes unintentionally sabotaging each other is a great example. “NYC (Disambiguation)” takes a brutal, honest look at NYC’s history – warts and all. “Statuette on the Console” ups the punk in their post-punk, taking off like a hot rod from the green light in an illegal street race. Belfiglio embraces her love of Patti Smith, Wendy O. Williams, and Poly Styrene, and the guitar solo on it by Dan Ryan is top-notch.

“C.I.R.P.” takes a shot at media elitists (backed by a wicked bass line from Adam See). “Pillar on the Bridge of You” is a delightful love song Hozie wrote to Belfiglio in which he claims all he wants to do is support her. “I have so many things to offer,” Hozie sings on “How Can I Help YA?” – a song that seems to be about self-proclaimed influencers. Ryan unleashes another solid solo right in the middle of it. “No Blade of Grass,” influenced by the bleak (but excellent 1970 disaster film of the same name), has Hozie and Belfiglio singing about how we’re constantly pummeled by disasters both real and imagined, mainly to benefit those with more wealth than us (“We need strength and discipline…So, give more power to the rich, they say. Inequality, it is natural.”).

The band’s fondness for The Velvet Underground comes through on “All Past Lovers,” which has that cool, driving beat (provided by Tai Lee, who sizzles on the entire record, really) and almost-drone guitar that is hard to do without sounding like a damn mess. Hozie dreams of rest and escaping loneliness on “Seneca the Stoic.” The album ends with “After Jane,” an acoustic ode to Hozie’s mother – with whom he admits he had a rocky relationship at times, and that her battle with mental illness was one of the hardest challenges of their life together, but he acknowledges that he now can “channel your hurt when I sing my songs.”

Broken Equipment is another sharp record from a band that has taken critique and self-critique to Zen levels and can make you pogo while doing it.

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe before you go.]

[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Rewind Review: Frankie and the Witch Fingers – Levitation Sessions (2020)

Released in the middle of the pandemic and when everyone needed to just crank some psych-garage rock and let out a bunch of pent-up energy in their living room, Frankie and the Witch Fingers‘ Levitation Sessions is a great slice of the band’s always-solid live sets and bursts with energy for its entire length.

“Activate” is perfectly named and played to start off the set with beats that get your feet tapping right away and riffs to knock you back on your heels. “Reaper” is always a standout with its dreamy build-up to crushing power. “Sweet Freak” has this cool, looping groove to it that evolves into wild, frenetic, psychedelic guitar solos that are like a crow calling from a high tree when you walk by.

“Where’s Your Reality?” is another FATWF that absolutely cooks live or otherwise. Something is wrong with you if it doesn’t get you jumping and / or crowd surfing. The song melts into “Michaeldose,” a trippy and funky instrumental. The driving, hammering beats and bass of “Realization” are likely to induce you to bounce around your living room so hard you’ll be knocking over lamps and freaking out your pets.

The drums on “Dracula Drug” are especially sharp. All respect to Caster Black, who recorded and mixed the whole session. Another good example of the mixing is how well “Can You Hear Me Now?” eases into the rocking “Simulator” – another cut that always floors any audience. Likewise, “Cavehead” blends perfectly into the peppy, trippy “MEPEM…” – which is over eight minutes of thumping, bumping garage-psych.

Levitation Sessions is a great taste of a live FATWF show – a taste that leaves you wanting to dive face-first into their psychedelic buffet.

Keep your mind open.

[Why not levitate over to the subscription box while you’re here?]

Review: Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor – Good Goddamn

Appropriate of its title, Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor‘s new album, Good Goddamn, is sometimes loud, bold, and a bit unhinged.

It starts off with a bit of deception on “She Makes a Great Parade.” The song sounds like a record that was left on a windowsill in late June and used as a sleeping mat for a cat. I mean that in the best possible way, because I don’t know how else SOYSV get the trippy, warped sound on it. Both Eric Oppitz‘s bass and keyboards are floating in space, Sean Morrow‘s guitar goes from rocket thrusters to spaghetti westerns, and Rick Sawoscinski‘s drums are a mix of chaos and order like they’re played by Harvey Dent.

“It’s Good to Be Alive” is a natural follow-up, as its title is referenced in the lyrics of the opening track. The song, and especially Morrow’s guitar work, slips back and forth between shoegaze fuzz and dreamy psych-rock. I also love the electronic beats that sound like something from a 1990s hip hop B-side. Trust me. It works, as do the lyrics about being brave enough to “step in the light.” The title track is as crazy as you hope it will be, with Morrow calling out motherfuckers who haven’t paid their dues. Sawoscinski sounds like he’s having a blast on it, jumping back and forth from, again, beats that would work in hip hop or house to near-metal pounding. There’s a ripping sax solo on this cut, too, elevating it to something like a Stooges proto-punk rager.

“Never Comin’ Over” reminds me a bit of some Love and Rockets cuts with its swirling guitar riffs. Oppitz’s love of synthwave comes through on “Walk of Sobriety,” as his keyboard work is perfectly suitable for a nightclub patronized by androids. Morrow sings / shouts to people who need to wake up from their illusions, and even more so from the ones projected onto them by others. His vocals are often frantic throughout the whole record, channeling his (and his pals’) rage and frustration with the world in general for the last two years.

“Taser Blue” and “A Little Sweetness” slow things down for a bit so you can settle in for a nice drift down a sunny river or chilling in your apartment with a tasty slice of leftover pizza while the cat decides to sleep on your lap instead of that record on the windowsill. Both options are valid. The closer, “Specimen Jar,” has Morrow bringing back some of the vocal hooks and lyrics that are spread throughout the record, giving the album a bit of a looping effect as Sawoscinki builds the beats into a mind-altering cadence until the song, and the album, ends with the lyric “It’s good to be alive.”

It’s a nice, hopeful send-off for everyone. It’s a reminder to stay present, even in the chaos and in suffering. It’s a hell of a record.

Keep your mind open.

[It’s good to subscribe.]

Rewind Review: The Smithereens – Meet the Smithereens (2007)

A Smithereens cover album of a classic Beatles album?! Yes, please!

It’s no secret that The Beatles are one of the biggest influences on The Smithereens (along with The Who, The Kinks, and many others from the UK), so hearing this American rock band have fun with these tracks is a delight from beginning to end.

They’re a little subdued on their version of “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and it’s an effective in touch – pushing the love in the song more than the riffs. They push the riffs harder on “I Saw Her Standing There,” rocking it for all it’s worth. “This Boy” soothes things down a bit before the rocking, underappreciated Beatles’ classic “It Won’t Be Long” – a song they load with Jim Babjak‘s killer guitar riffs.

“All I’ve Got to Do” has a blues touch to it that’s perfectly suited to Pat Dinizio‘s voice. Severo “The Thrilla” Jornacion‘s bass is all over “All My Loving.” They perfectly capture the 1960s garage rock sound on “Don’t Bother Me.”

“Little Child” flies right by you at fast beats laid down by Dennis Diken, and then “Till There Wsa You” comes in with almost a Tiki lounge comfort to it. They make playing “Beatles swing” sound easy on “Hold Me Tight.” They unleash “I Wanna Be Your Man” on you after you’re all cozy from the previous track, with Babjak taking on lead vocals and having a blast with it. The albums ends with a fade-out on “Not a Second Time,” leaving you with a smile and fond memories.

It’s a fun record, and one that led to other fun cover albums by then. You’ll dig it if you’re a fan of either band.

Keep your mind open.

[Meet the subscription box!]