album reviews
Various Artists
Live From Festival Au Desert, Timbuktu Clermont
This documents the annual celebration of the Sahara's rich musical tradition, a festival whose alumni include Robert Plant. The 2012 fete was more Afropop hootenanny than motherland Lollapalooza, long on semiacoustic jams full of virtuoso soloing and trance-inducing grooves. Following the decree of Sharia law in part of Mali, the 2013 festival has been "postponed," making this a glimpse of an endangered culture. | More »
Alice Russell
To Dust Tru Thoughts/Caroline
We may have invented it, but as with many things (rock & roll, punk, house), we've no choice but to accept that the British do soul music as well as we do, often better. See Alice Russell, whose fierce remake of the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" in 2006 began a lively run through the UK rare groove DJ scene. Her fifth set, To Dust, works Russell's exquisite taste for beats and atmosphere into some of her strongest songs. "Heartbreaker" smolders like a Black Keys jam; h... | More »
Phoenix
Bankrupt! Loyaute/Glassnote
Bands like Phoenix aren't supposed to make it on Main Street USA. Globally ambitious European acts from Abba on down have usually tried to sound as Anglo-American as possible, but these Versailles-bred indie-pop guys radiate continental elegance. And yet they pulled off a stateside breakthrough with their fourth LP, 2009's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, and its cunningly fun hits "Lisztomania" and "1901" – sublime songs about old-world Europe that ran the radio-play-TV-commercial-w... | More »
Steve Martin and Edie Brickell
Love Has Come for You Rounder
Did Steve Martin rock his signature arrow-through-the-head prop at these bluegrass-y sessions? Hard to tell; except for unfussy harmonies, he expresses himself only via his stately, joyous banjo-plunking. The star is Edie Brickell, the hippie-pop one-hit wonder (and Mrs. Paul Simon), whose sassy vocals feel down-home but all her own. The songs tap folk tradition without getting stuck in it; they’re full of struggling lovers, an ’84 Ford, a baby in a suitcase and some memorable mel... | More »
Junip
Junip Mute
As a solo artist, Argentine-born, Sweden-based indie-folk auteur José González can massage your worried mind like Cat Stevens. With his band Junip, there's a dark, funky undercurrent pulling against the pastoral kindness. Here, he dangles tensile guitar and low-talking tenor over stark, worldly grooves and drone-haunted synths, like Fleet Foxes with a hellhound on their trail. González's hippie bromides have a "hey, whatever" mordancy; see the mumblecore dirge-b... | More »
Ghost B.C.
Infestissumam Loma Vista
The Swedish metallers raised eyebrows with their Lucifer-loving lyrics, Blue Öyster Cult choruses and their frontman's infernal pope get-up, but on their second LP they embrace something even more unholy: prog. The songs are knotty and complicated; the multivalenced "Jigolo Har Megiddo" feels like it's set not in hell but in Kansas. The results are intricately plotted, if not as instantly bewitching. | More »
Kid Cudi
Indicud Republic
Someday this Cleveland MC/producer/former weed enthusiast will find the lyrical and vocal charisma to match the scrumptiously dark, quasi-industrial tenor of his moody beats. But Cudi’s pitchy-dawg voice remains his own worst enemy. He has some interesting pals (Father John Misty, Kendrick Lamar, RZA, Too Short), and they are, without exception, welcome presences. Keep your friends close, Cud! | More »
Alice Smith
She Rainwater/Thirty Tigers
Smith works a nether region 'twixt Beyoncé and Norah Jones, no doubt why she wound up in major-label limbo after her eclectic 2006 debut. The equally adventurous follow-up lands in a new R&B world that embraces oddballs like Janelle Monáe and Santigold, whose stylistic freestyles Smith beat to market. She does sultry and cool well. But the hotter – see the Nina Simone-conjuring "She" – the better. | More »
The Postal Service
Give Up: Deluxe 10th Anniversary Edition Sub Pop
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 result felt like discovering a rock-scene chill room on high-purity drugs. The album runs as brisk and cleansing as ever, with frenetic, fragile clubland beats locking in with Gibbard's breathy spy-cam observations and Jenny Lewis' meek harmonies. The... | More »
Steve Earle & the Dukes (and Duchesses)
The Low Highway New West
You can hear the road in Steve Earle's voice, a craggy rumble with a whole lot of mileage on it. But that voice is also a finely cadenced instrument, perfect for the burly roots rock, Dylan-style roadhouse blues and jaunty bluegrass-ragtime of his 15th LP. The Low Highway doesn't always fulfill his ambitions; the title track aims for a Guthrie-esque grandeur it doesn't reach. But there's no arguing with Earle's singing, or sharp, often beautiful, songwriting, which st... | More »
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