album reviews
Regina Spektor
What We Saw From the Cheap Seats Sire/Warner Bros.
Spiking piano-driven songs of heartbreak with comic turns of phrase, cartoon voices and beatboxing outbursts, Regina Spektor has become her generation's Joni Mitchell – a singer-songwriter who nail-guns emotional truths between wisecracks. Her latest, even tighter and more flamboyant than 2009's Far, may be her best. Exhibit A: "Firewood," which treats mortal illness (a recurring theme for her) with elegant surrealism, imagining a piano used for kindling while boldly telling a... | More »
Azealia Banks
1991 EP Interscope/Geffen/A&M
The long-awaited debut EP from this Harlem MC is four tracks – including her breakthrough single, "212," and more shit talk than you'd get at a Friday night nail salon – that spin hip-hop backward and forward. Banks kicks things off with chatty Franglish rhymes, but she also quotes A Tribe Called Quest and spits fire over bulbous deep-house jams cooked up by progressive Brooklyn producer Machinedrum. More, please. Listen to '1991 EP': Related• Photos: Random ... | More »
Sigur Ros
Valtari XL
Nothing much happens on the instrumental title track of Sigur Rós’ latest LP, but it’s a layered, gorgeous nothing, lush with nuanced drift and harmonic sweetness. It’s the set piece of the group’s mellowest LP. Jonsi’s exquisite vocals evoke prayers or lullabies, while pecked-out piano melodies play amid dulcimer tones, sonar burps, elf choirs. It’s like sacred music of a religion sans dogma or proscriptions. Listen to 'Valtari': R... | More »
The Walkmen
Heaven Bella Union
Originally a second–tier New York garage band, The Walkmen grew into their own large‐hearted sound. Heaven is their most expansive LP, alternating shaggy ballads with songs like "The Witch," a U2–huge waltz about pondering the future. Listen to 'Heaven':RelatedPhotos: Random Notes | More »
Scissor Sisters
Magic Hour Polydor
The hedonistic disco–pop crew connects when it drops its guard (the cheating anthem "Year of Living Dangerously") or wigs out, but the Brit–pop and Elton John moves here feel phoned in. Moderation in pursuit of fabulosity is no virtue. Listen to 'Magic Hour': Related• Photos: Random Notes | More »
Various Artists
Occupy This Album Razor & Tie
This 99-track Occupy benefit shows how far beyond Sixties folk lefty rabble-rousing has come, with hip-hop, electronica and indie rock sitting alongside Pete Seeger and Joan Baez. The comp's high point is unexpectedly ambivalent: the slow-build amp howl of Mogwai’s “Earth Division” leading into the battle rattle of the Occupy Wall Street drummers – a one-two punch designed to strike at the rotten heart of capitalism. Listen to 'Occupy This Album': Rela... | More »
Killer Mike
R.A.P. Music Williams Street
"We're money-hungry wolves and we down to eat the rich," Killer Mike warns, sounding at once like a trap-rap hustler and an Occupy anarchist. This Dirty South fixture has evolved into the Noam Chomsky of the strip club, and his sixth LP is his best blast of down-home invective yet, especially when he takes down societal ills from the inside – as on the slow-rolling meditation on police violence, "Anywhere but Here." Some of his punditry is pure Che T-shirt prattle, but even when he... | More »
Michael Kiwanuka
Home Again Cherrytree/Interscope
Steeped in the unplugged soul vibe of Terry Callier, Van Morrison and the music Otis Redding didn't live to make after "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay," Michael Kiwanuka is a former London session guitarist who flashes a gentle spirit and a voice like hash smoke on this debut album. Credit its lushness – more indelible than the songs themselves – in part to producer Paul Butler of U.K. indie-rock maximalists the Bees, who helped build remarkable multitrack orchestratio... | More »
Damon Albarn
Dr Dee Virgin
On this solo joint, the ever-adventuring Gorillaz and Blur frontman gets together with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Nigerian drummer Tony Allen for an operatic salute to mysterious Elizabethan alchemist John Dee. An ambitious and unexpected move, sure, but the mix of period strings, vocal choruses and West African percussion (plus Albarn's gloomy score) makes for a dense term paper. Listen to 'Dr Dee': Related• Photos: Random Notes | More »
Keane
Strangeland Interscope
Keane's nostalgia-drenched fourth disc looks back to their mid-2000s heyday, when they were contenders for Coldplay's sad-rock throne. At times it's catchy, but its maudlin ballads and monochrome synth-pop production are also kind of dull. Listen to 'Strangeland': Related• Photos: Random Notes | More »
Music Reviews
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star ratingWhat We Saw From the Cheap Seats -
star rating1991 EP -
star ratingValtari
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star ratingHeaven -
star ratingMagic Hour -
star ratingBorn and Raised
Photos & Videos
Random Notes: Hottest Rock Pictures
Gallery: Sasquatch! 2012
