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Universal Truths and Cycles
Just like the 1960's British Invasion that unleashed records at a breakneck speed until Americans were drowning in vinyl, Guided by Voices leader Robert Pollard is determined to over-saturate the market all by himself. In the last twelve years the band has released thirteen albums (three live). After their last two albums of new material […]
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Deepcut To Nowhere
Graham Parker has always been a spiky one. And now, after twenty-five years of service — and with no gold watch or multi-platinum parachute in sight — the old boy is plenty cranky. "I'll Never Play Jacksonville Again" could be a love letter to his booking agent, while the hapless incompetence Parker catalogs in "It […]
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Pinkerton
Although no one in the band originally hails from Southern California, Weezer have got the sound and attitude of early-'60s Los Angeles down. Melodies bounce with vigor; in the lyrics, help is just a sunshiny day away. There is still plenty of Weezer's signature dorkiness on Pinkerton, the follow-up to their successful 1994 debut, Weezer. […]
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Pulse
There's a true sense of leisure in the music of Pink Floyd. Their stage show knows no logistical limit, and their songs unfold at a pace that suggests there's an inordinate amount of time to kill. Pulse, their second all-live album (only seven years and one studio album since the previous — with nine selections […]
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Brutal Youth
If it's true that Elvis Costello and his wife, Cait O'Riordan, wrote the 10 songs on Wendy James' last album in one weekend — songs that sounded like outtakes from This Year's Model — then Brutal Youth's 15 tunes, penned by Costello himself, probably came the following week. After a classical foray with the Brodsky […]
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Best of Van Morrison Vol. 2
Though he forever pines for his lost youth, drops the heaviest names in the arts-and-letters biz (this time out it's Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett and the perennial James Joyce) and loses himself in obscure mystic reveries, Van Morrison has had trouble getting his vision to take flight for the past decade or so. Always an […]
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Too Long In Exile
Though he forever pines for his lost youth, drops the heaviest names in the arts-and-letters biz (this time out it's Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett and the perennial James Joyce) and loses himself in obscure mystic reveries, Van Morrison has had trouble getting his vision to take flight for the past decade or so. Always an […]
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The Best of Van Morrison
Though he forever pines for his lost youth, drops the heaviest names in the arts-and-letters biz (this time out it's Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett and the perennial James Joyce) and loses himself in obscure mystic reveries, Van Morrison has had trouble getting his vision to take flight for the past decade or so. Always an […]
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Bone Machine
For more than twenty years, Tom Waits has chronicled the small wins and grotesque losses of the seedy underworld. Bone Machine, his first full-length studio album since Frank's Wild Years (1987), continues observing a world of deathly mysteries, half-baked gospel truths and secular ambitions. His drunken bluster to the fore, Waits tramples melodies with an […]
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