album reviews
Chance the Rapper
Acid Rap Self-released
Chance the Rapper doesn't hide his influences, or his ambitions. His rhyme flow at times baldly resembles Lil Wayne's or, at other times, Eminem's; his mainstream-but-iconoclastic posture draws inspiration from Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West. But on his wildly anticipated, unshakably confident second mixtape, the Chicagoan speaks in his own distinctive and eccentric voice. It’s a voice that shifts, with jolt, between fleet rapping and rap-singing. (In "Juice," his raggedly... | More »
Vampire Weekend
Modern Vampires of the City XL
It's official: Vampire Weekend really don't give a fuck about an Oxford comma. On their third album, Ezra Koenig and the band have rid themselves, once and for all, of the precious post-collegiate references that used to be their calling card: The girls of Wellfleet have scattered, and apparently that second horchata didn't go down as smooth as the first. Koenig is now an old 29; adulthood is inescapable; a clock is ticking in his head. "Wisdom's a gift/But you'd trad... | More »
Natalie Maines
Mother Columbia
It's been a decade since Natalie Maines said a few choice words about George W. Bush and set off the biggest flame war in country-music history. Overnight, the Dixie Chicks became pariahs, and the role suited them: They broke with Nashville, hooked up with Rick Rubin and recorded their tautest, most tough-minded album, 2006's Taking the Long Way. Now, Maines returns with a solo LP – and she wants no part of country whatsoever. Mother, co-produced by Maines and Ben Harper, is a... | More »
Rod Stewart
Time Capitol
Rock's greatest interpretive singer wrote 11 of the 12 songs on his first album of original material in nearly 20 years. It's a companion of sorts to Stewart's endearing autobiography from last year; there's a song about his early days trying to make it as a singer ("Can't Stop Me Now"), one about divorce ("It's Over") and one about his bohemian younger days ("Brighton Beach"), and the music is usually either "Maggie May" sweet or spandex-slappingly loose. The so... | More »
Deerhunter
Monomania 4AD
Since forming Deerhunter as a raw ambient-punk outfit 12 years ago, Bradford Cox has turned an obsession with rock & roll excess and escapism – and all the fluid-spattered, cross-dressing onstage moments that such provokes – into a reckless, fascinating catalog. The band's sixth LP honors Cox's preoccupation and his chameleonic qualities: from opening with a craggy groan that transitions into a glamrock-garage assault ("Neon Junkyard") to grumbling through low-fi fol... | More »
Fleetwood Mac
Extended Play Self-released
"We fall to Earth together/The crowd calling out for more," goes a couplet on this four-track EP by the remaining Macs (Christine McVie sits out). Note to band: That doesn't mean y'all have to answer. But if their first release of new music in a decade isn't replacing any classics, the voices of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks can still bring chills. The gem is "Without You," a breezy Nicks-written folk rocker from the couple's pre-Mac project Buckingham Nicks: Largely... | More »
Fitz and the Tantrums
More Than Just a Dream Elektra
This six-piece Los Angeles pop-soul group, led by studio engineer-turned-singer-songwriter Michael Fitzpatrick, is all about irrepressible energy: hopped-up rhythms, shout-it-out choruses, hooted background vocals. On their 2010 debut, Pickin' Up the Pieces, FATT were soul revivalists, and though you can still hear plenty of Motown in the beat and the booming production, they've tossed in lots more: hip-hop, electro, jittery New Wave and even a dash of Mumford & Sons in their sh... | More »
Pistol Annies
Annie Up RCA Nashville
There may be better bands than Pistol Annies, but what band is more of a hoot? The second LP by the all-female supergroup – Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley – is, like its 2011 debut, full of attitude and guffaws, delivered in three-part harmony over down-home country. "Hush Hush" is a rockabilly romp about family secrets; "Damn Thing" is a bluegrass-suffused bad girl's anthem. But there's pathos beneath the jokes. "Unhappily Married" is a sharp and s... | More »
Savages
Silence Yourself Matador/Pop Noire
At 11 tracks in 38 minutes, the full-length debut by this London band of women is a constant, compact fury: Emotional confrontation and sexual vengeance executed with martial discipline, at mostly blinding speed. Savages do not write songs as such. “I Am Here,” “No Face” and “Husbands” are stark whirls of one-sided argument, with Jehnny Beth shooting across the turbulence – Ayse Hassan’s grunting bass, Gemma Thompson’s scorched-treble guit... | More »
Harper Simon
Division Street Tulsi/Pias
The self-titled 2009 debut by Harper Simon – son of Paul Simon and Peggy Harper – was a folk-rock outing that owed a lot to his dad's fingerpicking elegance and articulate lyricism. You can hear echoes of Simon and Garfunkel's Sixties whimsy on his second album, marinated in sad-swirl guitars that recall Death Cab For Cutie or Elliott Smith (the album is co-produced by Tom Rothrock, who helmed Smith's ornate later albums and members of Wilco and the Strokes appear o... | More »
Music Reviews
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star ratingRandom Access Memories -
star ratingModern Vampires of the City -
star ratingTrouble Will Find Me
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star ratingExcuse My French -
star ratingDemi -
star ratingSports (30th Anniversary Edition)
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