I adore the way Leave Me Alone, the debut album from Hinds, shuffles to life with a distinct slacker ease, as if it’s trying to establish a code of ripe sonic lassitude. Album opener “Garden” recalls some of the hollowed out retro rock of the Best Coast brigade from a couple years back, but with an added distancing from the rigidity of popcraft. With its trudging backbeat, rickety anti-harmonies, and guitar lines that sound like they’re being played by arms collapsing out of exhaustion, “Garden” is a call to arms from a band choosing not to raise their voice too … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Leave Me Alone

(photo source) I really liked Visions, the album released by Grimes in 2012. But I also found it to be a little uneven, prone to digressions that didn’t quite spin into full-fledged, satisfying tracks. Peaks and valleys are to be expected (and the peaks were absolutely glorious), but it’s nice when the valleys are worth strolling through, too. Still, every indication was there that Grimes was poised to make an album that could be deemed great without reservation. All she needed to do was take another artistic step forward. Turns out that step I hoped for is more of a … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Art Angels

(photo credit) Any question about whether Chvrches will be able to adequately follow up the arresting pop from their debut album, The Bones of What You Believe, is eradicated within the first seconds of the Swedish band’s sophomore release. Every Open Eye doesn’t roar to life or even explode into being. Instead, album opener “Never Ending Circles” simply is from the very beginning, as if a needle had been dropped square in the middle of a eternal pop epic. The track builds its extended chorus on a fantastic hook, but it feels deliriously as if it’s all hook, indeed hooks overlapping other hooks … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Every Open Eye

Best as I can determine, the only significant flaw of Pageant Material, the new album from Kacey Musgraves, is that it seems to inspire a unstoppable fleet of music writer think pieces, the sort of essays that helplessly consider music only in the context of some imagined greater trend. It can’t simply be that her second album for Mercury Nashville is a splendid example of songcraft, warmly and wittily performed. It somehow has to provide entry to commentary of the very nature of modern country music, usually delivered with withering condescension by music writers who’ve probably not listened to more … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Pageant Material

These Holly Miranda albums take time. After the 2004 debut release that she hawked at shows, the by-then former Jealous Girlfriend released a proper solo bow in 2010. That didn’t even have a quick turnaround time from studio to record store, with it sitting idly on the shelf until Miranda signed with XL Recordings in 2010. That pairing of artist and label wasn’t meant to last, though, and Miranda started working on her next album on her own, eventually connecting with Dangerbird Records. The result is technically her third album, and yet it bears her own name. Like all self-titled releases … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Holly Miranda

Though I suppose it doesn’t matter so much on record, Father John Misty definitely looks the part. The identity adopted by Josh Tillman, at least as far back as the exemplary 2012 album Fear Fun, calls to mind some odd and mildly lackadaisical man of the cloth, which is roughly what the singer-songwriter presents with his lanky frame, propensity for bargain suits, and a beard so thick and bodacious it looks like the merest provocation could send it scuttling off to begin a new life as an especially posh footstool. He looks like he’s comes in from a gnarly forest after … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: I Love You, Honeybear

I believe I officially have to rethink my standing policy of greeting all band reunions with unyielding skepticism that extends to the point of preemptive dismissal. I’ll admit it’s been outdated for a while, a vestige of the time when I and many of my fellow college radio-reared music snob cohorts measured artistic credibility beginning with a consideration of distance from anything that could be termed selling out. Decisions seemingly made on the basis of readily available dollars rather than following some fictitious muse were commonly met with peak animosity, and getting the band back together was one of those … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: No Cities to Love