That guitar. It snarls to life so beautifully. Then the bass and drums join in, like nineteen-fifties hoodlums falling in line for a strut down the city block to signal neighborhood sovereignty. By the time Lexi McCoy starts in with … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Suzie True, “Backburner”

In the time since Caroline Polachek moved on from the breakup of her band Chairlift, it’s sometimes seemed like she’s everywhere doing everything. Her debut solo album, Pang, was released in 2019 to widespread acclaim, but it’s more than that. … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Caroline Polachek, “Sunset”

An empowerment anthem about rejecting a personal tendency for diminishing self-judgment, “Flip It” is a prime blast of Bleached. The single is grounded in a chewy pop-punk and spins on the axis of an irresistible singalong chorus, siblings Jennifer and … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Bleached, “Flip It”

“Should be easy to remember cuz it’s the same day Taylor Swift is putting out her album,” Carly Rae Jepsen joked from the Radio City Music Hall stage recently when reminding fans of when her newest full-length studio effort will … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Carly Rae Jepsen (feat. Rufus Wainwright), “The Loneliest Time”

If music artists have narratives that span their entire careers, Samia is sketching in her next page appropriately with her new single “Kill Her Freak Out.” According to her, the sedate, withdrawn, Bridgers-esque expressions of anger and despair embedded in … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Samia, “Kill Her Freak Out”

The new single from Meat Wave is exactly what I want, and indeed expect, rock music from Chicago to sound like. “10k” moves with a steady intensity and an obvious, inherent power, like an el train coming at full speed. … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Meat Wave, “10k”

Not to get all Mr. Holland’s Opus today, but one of the enormous privileges that comes from working in higher education for many years (in my case, about a decade and a half) is watching the exemplary human beings you … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Ariel Bui, “Sixteen”

I suspect most people whose curiosity is piqued by the new band the WAEVE attribute that interest to the presence of Graham Coxon, famous for bringing all manner of wild invention to the band Blur. I’m also glad to hear … Continue reading This Week’s Model — The WAEVE, “Can I Call You”

This is as it should be. I feel like a band that had its official home base in the same ZIP Code as me (or one of the nearby ones within our shared city limits) should give me this this … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Disq, “(With Respect to) Loyal Serfs”

It’s been nearly ten years since I reviewed Caitlin Rose’s sophomore LP, The Stand-In. It’s a good record, and I wrote as much. In the time since, though, it’s grown on me considerably, the clarity of Rose’s songwriting and the … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Caitlin Rose, “Black Obsidian”