I’ve spent the last few days knocked to the canvas by a cruel summer ailment. Maybe it’s a summer cold or a bout with the flu. Maybe it’s something yet worse that I, a stubborn fool, should have already gone … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Dedicated

I got my first sense of the sound of I Am Easy to Find, the new album from the National, from a track released by a completely different band. For the album Love is Dead, which came out in 2018, … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — I Am Easy to Find

U.F.O.F., the new album from Brooklyn-based band Big Thief, is a lovely, elusive work. The first three letters of the title stand for exactly what anyone would think they do, and the tacked on consonant represents the word “friend.” On … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — U.F.O.F.

It’s not easy to like Vampire Weekend. I carry enough vaporous remainders of my bygone college radio posturing against bands that didn’t conform to my peer group’s preference for vagabond scruff, all battered sneakers, faulty gear, and romanticized disenfranchisement. From … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Father of the Bride

“Recite the songs that kept me whole/ On the day I hand over command control/ Try to let them all flow into this one,” sings John Darnielle on “Done Bleeding,” the track that opens In League with Dragons. The new … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — In League with Dragons

There was a time when I was dead certain that the further someone was past their teenaged years, the less business they had flinging pop songs into the world. The vernacular of modern pop is still drawing its emotional language … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

On the Line, the new album from Jenny Lewis, exists in a glorious time warp. The artistic sensibility that she’s developed across the two decades since Rilo Kiley’s debut is firmly in place, but is as if there’s a spinning … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — On the Line

The baby sister in the intimidatingly talented Knowles clan, Solange faced a monumental task in following up 2016’s A Seat at the Table, which was widely and justly celebrated as an elegant reinvention of classic soul music. Blazingly smart and … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — When I Get Home

I’ve been repeatedly certain I’d finally encounter the sunny side of Bob Mould for at least twenty-five years. Upon the release of File Under: Easy Listening, the sophomore album from Mould’s band Sugar, I hummingbirded around my college radio station, … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Sunshine Rock

Sharon Van Etten has an intimacy issue, of a sort. Her previous studio efforts (and there’s a big batch of them, including self-released material and stray demos) are filled with stark and beautiful songs. Many of them are also so … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Remind Me Tomorrow