#3812 Dan Mangan - Oh Fortune

4/5 Mangan's voice is weathered and true, and he's just got this effortless knack for making lilting, swooping songs, flecked with horns, ending in elegies. But the real gutpunch is just the prescient feel of this album, the sense of ominous space and burgeoning dread that pervades every song, and feels devastatingly of our current moment 


What happens next
East to west
Lunatics
And it started slow
Ends in a rush
Starts with them
And ends with us
Just pray in the night these walls are enough

#3786 Skatebard - Vill Stil

3/5 packed with clever little sound design gestures, this guy clears the presets when he gets a new synth. Skatebard gets a lot of mileage out of a small idea and minimal hardware, except when it's a long road to nowhere -- man those 11 minute tracks are slogs

#3741 Jamie xx, Gil Scott-Heron - We're New Here

3/5 Richard Russel gets inspired by the xx to make a weird Scott-Heron album, Jamie xx makes even weirder, even less Scott-Heron remake. This sounds more like a Jamie xx album that samples the late great master, which is fine, but the least of the 3 (so far!) versions

#3593 Louis Cole - Album 2

3.5/5 enigmatic night-pop, pretty and miniature with a Pet Sounds intimacy

#3452 Blouse - Blouse

2.5/5 Reverbey postpostpunk that's smothered itself into nothingness, slow, muffled, familiar, numb

#3420 Matt Berry - Witchazel

4/5 quietly offkilter, just this side of parody, rolling around in folk and prog and all of their uncanny excursions into melody. Arch at times, but throwing all off like a cloak

#3310 Mike Krol - I Hate Jazz

4.5/5
Not since Jay Reatard have I heard songs this fucking _tight, just catchy brash pop-punk forge-welded into impossible sharpness, streaked with the noise and melody of its enemies.

#3253 Keith Keniff - Branches

Shimmering, twinkling soundtrackery, pianos and bells and strings all plinking and popping endlessly, the glitchy Booksian hestitations bringing the most interesting moments. Uncertain of whether to be peaceful or ominous, never finding a structure that supports both 3/5

#3252 Cameron McGill and What Army - Is a Beast

Like U2* covering Josh Ritter - soaring, sky-grasping anthems, streaked with sunburns and the dust of the road. Pleasant enough, but pretty firmly locked into its 4-minute 3-chorus cadences 3/5

* or less charitably, Coldplay

#3218 Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Chugging, fuzzed-out stoner rock drenched in falsetto. Solid headbobbery, nothing special 3/5

#3038 Teenage Bad Girl - Backwash

Does nothing new, does a vast swath of old things well. Not shy with that bandname and pink/teal cover art. But fuckit. Dancable, energetic, weird; drawing on banging hiphop, big dumb house, dreamy French daftpunk driftaway. The big guitars buzzed back into overblown synth territory, dodging every cheap pitfall. Brainshortcircuit distilled, more then the sum of its parts, possibly brilliant 4/5

#2888 The Rozwell Kid - The Rozwell Kid LP

Even more so than Weezer, Rozwell Kid nail that sweetspot, that overlap between pop-punk and hair metal. Speed any of these songs up 25% you get punk proper, slow em down and they turn into stoner rock - as is it's just nodalong anthemic bliss. Add a little bit of slacker wit and it's no wonder My Saturn and Ace Ventura Pt 3 have been in my head for days. This's heavier than the more-fun Too Shabby or Good Graphics, but not as leaden as Precious Art. Sweet spot.

25 years ago these guys coulda been stars, but be glad they're here in the post-rock 2010's when we need them most 4/5

#2851 The Men - Leave Home

The Men's Open Your Heart's one of my favorite albums of the decade, drifting effortlessly from immediacy to patience and back. Everything The Men did afterwards fell flat: failed at the simmer, the boil, and the movement between.

2011's Leave Home has some of that old magic though, even if the structure's a little more predictable. If You Leave... spends a solid 3 minutes getting going before stomping in place for 4 more; it's organic, live, exciting, connected. And then the fury goes up and up, staying way too long in the shrieking nothing of LADOCH, before making a miraculous recovery, winding its way back down through thrilling, textured punk-motorik contours.

I like noise, but those six LADOCH minutes in the middle are a total momentum-killer, sounding sloppy and indulgent, and it's a shame cause the rest is so good. These guys had a deadly sense of pacing, letting riffs spool our organically, hitting the subconscious and the pelvis in all the right ratios. A near-great album, at least made more memorable by its mistakes 4/5

#2768 Harold and the Barrels - Omenaje a Genesis

These Spanish guys do no-frills English versions of some of the most-English Genesis songs. They're not super tight, but their garagey enthusiasm generates electricity. Prog rock's built on virtuoso perfection and pompous presentation, so there's something strangely thrilling about hearing it covered imperfectly.

Colony of Slippermen is unsalvageable; a strange pick, especially for an opening song, and some of the more mechanical songs just sound like pale imitations. But Juan Talavera's accent lends an uncanny urgency, and the rough edges make for versions of Battle of Epping Forest and The Lamia that I might actually prefer to the originals. Hardcore Genesis fans will have a fun listen, even if I can't imagine recommending this to anyone else 3.5/5

#2550 Dip in the Pool - Brown Eyes

Smooth, sunny crooning over Starbucks-ready horns and shuffly drums, sounding strangely French in its coy lilting, never really getting your attention. It's all very one note, overstaying its welcome even at 26 minutes 2.5/5

#1808 Wilco - The Whole Love

Quietly great, packed with flowing little interplays. Album kicks off with the proggy, 7-minute explosion: Art of Almost. And then it just settles on down into some agreeable little 3-4-minuters, never quite disappearing, until that majestic 12-minute closer that rolls and bobs and shines and is over before you know it, like a secret best ever Kurt Vile song.

Terrifically listenable, understated, even if it's never quite brilliant 4/5

#1505 Glassyoh - Jazz EP

Loopin, loopin, sample loopin disco music packed with frazzled vocals, throbbing horns, and the occasional pulse-pounding synth burner. AI-NO-EKI is the standout, a full powered, strangely original smashemup that works an endless shrieking horn riff right into the grain of a Justice-ready buzzsaw chug.

Exciting shit, it even flows real good! Just wish it was an hour - how often do I actually complain that something's too short around here? 4/5

#1224 Little Dragon - Ritual Union

God I feel like I'm saying this once a week these days: more of the usual synths + ladies thing. This at least has those minimalist, retro synths and spacious rhythmic pacing, giving it a weird tense kinda cool, as the beats clip basic, the drones drone with patience, everyone shy in the mix. Still not my thing, but at least it's doing its own thing 3/5

#1054 Dananananakroyd - There is a Way

Dananananakroyd cinch up their sound on their second album, weaponizing their formless exuberance into a sharpened slice of spastic, mathy post-punk, with some Future of the Left sneering, some Dismemberment Plan vulnerability, some Go Team propulsiveness, and a touch of straight up jagged disco guitarwork. It's less fun than Hey Everyone!, with nothing approaching the joy of Some Dresses (though Reboot might be a grower), but its a tighter, better album - worth a listen if you're into tight-wound, angular rock 3.5/5

#1029 Shark? - True Waste

Shark? update the Strokes / Interpol new-york-post-punk sound with a transcoastal trip through summerey cool, finding the middle ground between detached leather jacket cache and stoned boardshorts blase. The thrum thrum thrum thrum chug chug chug chug moan moan moan moan formula's down to a T, but crossed by handclaps, surflines, and Surfer Blood burstopen choruses - all beach-ready enough to find its way onto GTA V's socal stoner rock radio station. It's a disorientingly winning combination, letting just enough sunlight into the club to keep things bright, staggering with just enough swagger to keep you guessing 4/5