Contributor
56 items by Nick Catucci
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Watching Movies With the Sound Off | ALBUM REVIEW
There's a startling moment near the end of Mac Miller's ambitious second LP where all the playful boasts and wobbly beats seem to catch up with him, and he suddenly sounds like an overtired kid: The music...
June 18, 2013 8:20 AM ET -
Omens | ALBUM REVIEW
Even after hit collaborations with Ke$ha and Katy Perry, these jokey Colorado electro-rappers remain two nerdy bros. On their fourth LP, they ditch the guest stars to bluster, drop stale references (Yes, "winning"!) and obsess over chicks....
June 18, 2013 8:10 AM ET -
True Blood: Music From the HBO Original Series Volume 4 | ALBUM REVIEW
Reverence ain't exactly a hallmark of True Blood, the decadently soapy (and raunchy) HBO series. Although this soundtrack shows a certain fealty to familiar names and indie faves – Jenny Lewis duets with Eric Burdon, Bethany Cosentino...
June 17, 2013 6:10 PM ET -
Damage | ALBUM REVIEW
Jimmy Eat World were the schoolboy innocents of the mid-Nineties emo scene, plying lively, down-the-middle tunes applicable to smooching teens of any era. Twenty years later, on their first album since 2010, the Arizona guys still sound...
June 11, 2013 12:05 AM ET -
"Grown Woman" | SONG REVIEW
"I can live fast if I want, I can go slow all night long," Beyoncé declares on this dazzling sister anthem to "Bow Down/I Been On." But silk sheets are nowhere in evidence: Instead, you're invited...
June 7, 2013 1:30 PM ET -
"Guild" | SONG REVIEW
Odd Future savant Sweatshirt and party rapper Miller split this track down the middle, their voices pitch-shifted down and plunged into the tar-pit beat. But it's Earl, free-associating about Gil Scott-Heron and pill-popping, who sounds trapped, and...
June 7, 2013 1:05 PM ET -
...Like Clockwork | ALBUM REVIEW
Is there a more debonair dirtball in rock than Josh Homme? The Queens of the Stone Age frontman is the high priest of grimy rock tradition, exalting in exquisitely wrought guitar scraping and wry machismo –...
June 4, 2013 12:15 AM ET -
"I Appear Missing" | SONG REVIEW
QOTSA carved this three-minute chunk of stoner-paranoia rock from a six-minute track earmarked for their upcoming LP. "Missing" has the doomed, heady feel of a gas leak verging on explosion: Josh Homme's velvety moan personifies exquisite...
May 20, 2013 10:05 AM ET -
Tape Deck Heart | ALBUM REVIEW
The onetime singer of U.K. hardcore band Million Dead, Frank Turner is a grown-ass Englishman who turns out highly quotable, sometimes deliriously catchy rants about life after punk. His fifth LP blooms with crisply enunciated patter about...
May 8, 2013 10:35 AM ET -
"S.D.S." | SONG REVIEW
For the first single off his forthcoming second album, Miller – the pop-rap phenom and MTV2 reality dude – unspools a hushed version of his usual garrulous chatter over an artfully percolating beat furnished by Flying Lotus...
May 8, 2013 10:10 AM ET -
"Girls Love Beyoncé" | SONG REVIEW
Leave it to Drake to burrow into a ladies' anthem like Destiny's Child's "Say My Name" – which provides the chorus moaned here by James Fauntleroy – and discover a gooey, placenta-like sac of male feelings. And...
April 29, 2013 10:30 AM ET -
"The Bear and the Maiden" | SONG REVIEW
How's this for codpiece-busting fantasy fulfillment? The quintessential bar band shoulders through a drinking song written for Game of Thrones – with bear-meets-girl lyrics by George R.R. Martin himself. The show's composer, Ramin Djawadi, wrote the music,...
April 29, 2013 10:25 AM ET -
Give Up: Deluxe 10th Anniversary Edition | ALBUM REVIEW
Today you can't toss a guitar pick without clipping a synth-tickling indie-rock softy. But in 2003, when Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard traded tapes through the mail with Jimmy Tamborello (dance handle: Dntel), the one-off...
April 22, 2013 2:02 PM ET -
Wakin on a Pretty Daze | ALBUM REVIEW
Kurt Vile's sweetly slack fifth LP kicks in with a nine-and-a-half-minute song about taking a walk, hits peak stoner wonder in a song called "Air Bud" and fills in the spaces with trank-darted Dinosaur Jr. licks. But...
April 15, 2013 3:45 PM ET -
"The Way" | SONG REVIEW
"You a princess to the public but a freak when it's time," Mac Miller guest-raps on this linen-weight summer jam. Grande, a 19-year-old Nickelodeon star with Broadway chops, is more flirty than freaky, but her Mariah-esque vocals...
April 15, 2013 2:00 PM ET -
"Crying" | SONG REVIEW
Roy Orbison's classic is a tough chestnut to crack, an everlasting fusion of quavery emoting and plush instrumentation. Bethany, an early-rock fetishist with a normally dominating voice, comes off more bratty than stout in this...
March 28, 2013 2:40 PM ET -
Du Flocka Rant 2 | ALBUM REVIEW
Waka modulates charisma and id like a great comedian, giving his money-and-mollies routines a strident – or archly silly – edge. This mixtape unites dumb-deadpan lines like "Nigga fuck with me: R.I.P." with the anguished "Bad...
March 15, 2013 3:00 PM ET -
"The Rise of the Ghostface Killah" | SONG REVIEW
A spaghetti-Western-flavored origin story delivered with typical irresistible flair – from the strangulated sample of Ol' Dirty Bastard calling Ghost's name to lines like, "Colombian neckties from a black Gambino/Bodies get dumped in the black El Camino." Listen...
February 22, 2013 3:00 PM ET -
"Demon to Lean On" | SONG REVIEW
The greatest song yet by these twentysomething San Diego surf punks treats Nirvana like a killer thrift-shop find, with the guitars set to "mudslide" and an oh-well Nathan Williams drawling (possibly accidental) Kurt Cobain allusions...
February 12, 2013 2:50 PM ET -
Heartthrob | ALBUM REVIEW
These twin sisters from Calgary worked the jittery end of the coffeehouse throughout their twenties, crafting a sharp folk-rock sound that was a touch emo, but still Canadian-modest. But now, at 32, the Quins have decided to...
January 17, 2013 2:20 PM ET
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