Uniform & The Body – Mental Wounds Not Healing (2018)
Uniform and the Body are two duos who have consistently challenged, and sometimes obliterated, the boundaries between genres such as metal, noise, punk, and industrial. They both make intense, violent...
View ArticleLumerians – Call of the Void (2108)
…esoteric Oakland psych foursome Lumerians release their new album Call of the Void, via the excellent Fuzz Club records. It’s the group’s fifth LP since they formed in San Francisco in 2006, in which...
View ArticleThe Flaming Lips – Seeing the Unseeable: The Complete Studio Recordings...
…Seeing the Unseeable: The Complete Studio Recordings of The Flaming Lips 1986-1990 includes the band’s four albums recorded for Restless Records between 1984 and 1990 studio albums and two discs full...
View ArticleDead Gurus – Acid Bench (2017)
Sometimes an artist’s name is a dead giveaway when it comes to their sound and Minneapolis four-piece Dead Gurus are no exception to that rule. Thankfully, they also happen to be very good at what they...
View ArticleObnox – Murder Radio (2017)
…Coming hot on the heels of 2017’s other ‘Nox platter (Niggative Approach courtesy of 12XU), Murder Radio is another deep dive into the humid underground lair that Obnox (aka Lamont ‘Bim’ Thomas) calls...
View ArticleThe End – Svårmod Och Vemod Är Värdesinnen (2018)
When Norwegian baritone saxophonist Kjetil Møster joined forces in the studio with Swedish baritone sax burner Mats Gustafson, Norwegian noise-jazz guitarist Anders Hana (MoHa!, Ultralyd, Noxagt),...
View ArticleJaye Jayle – No Trail and Other Unholy Paths (2018)
Guitarist/vocalist Evan Patterson originally formed Jaye Jayle as a minimalist, solo antidote to his main band, the bone-crushing Louisville post-hardcore act Young Widows. Now a quartet augmented by...
View ArticleThe Armed – Only Love (2018)
Part of the thrill of these 11 songs is that they often sound like they’re about to burst or implode, but they never lose their course. On repeat listens to The Armed’s second album Only Love, you...
View ArticleContributors – Contributors (2017)
In the spring of 2017, Dan Melchior, sometime blues guitar rocker, sometime noise experimenter, went down to Austin for a few days to record with Spray Paint, a relentlessly rhythmic, a-melodic no wave...
View ArticleBody/Head – The Switch (2018)
To record The Switch, Body/Head returned to Massachusetts’ Sonelab Studios and reunited with producer Justin Pizzoferrato, the collaborator on their debut, Coming Apart. However, the evolution of Kim...
View ArticleUSA/Mexico – Laredo (2017)
Five years ago, Butthole Surfers drummer King Coffey and Shit & Shine frontman Craig Clouse teamed with bassist Matt Turner in Same Sac, a local avant-doom trio rattling jaws with double-barreled...
View ArticleEvil Blizzard – The Worst Show On Earth (2018)
Evil Blizzard and their Hawkwind-meets-PIL-and-Papa Lazarou-for-a-scuffle-in-the-car-park vibes were never going to please everyone. It seems unlikely, for instance, that the band will ever get played...
View ArticleGang – 925 ‘Til I Die (2017)
Seeping through like a blackened, tarry oil spill, Gang’s Sabbath-esque guitars hold you flailing under their remorseless current. Opening the bulk of the album’s material are creeping, warbling riffs...
View ArticleOvlov – TRU (2018)
Ovlov are a band, seemingly, because they need to be. After the Connecticut-bred crew released their debut album in 2013, they went through as series of breakups and offshoots — including Steve...
View ArticlePublic Image Ltd. – The Public Image Is Rotten: Songs from the Heart (2018)
John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten’s post-punk band Public Image Ltd. turns 40 years old in 2018. The anniversary was anticipated by a cheekily-titled documentary film, The Public Image Is Rotten, which...
View ArticleZoogz Rift – Amputees in Limbo + Ipecac (1982, 1984, Reissue 2017)
Another in the line of eccentric rock experimentalists led by Zappa and Beefheart, Zoogz Rift was influenced by those two as well as figures artistic (Dali) and literary/sociological (Ayn Rand, author...
View ArticleDeaf Wish – Lithium Zion (2018)
There’s an inherent flaw in the perennially alternating “rock is back” and “rock is dead” arguments: they are based on the idea that rock music is a logic-based choice a person consciously chooses to...
View ArticleUpper Wilds – Guitar Module 2017 (2017)
As frontman for the late, great Parts & Labor, Brooklyn’s Dan Friel cultivated an ear for melody; as a prolific solo artist, he’s embraced breakneck velocity. Those tendencies collide ferociously...
View ArticleBellini – Before the Day Has Gone (2018)
Throughout the ‘90s and early ‘00s, math rock — a mostly all-instrumental hybrid of razor-sharp mechanics, crushing post-hardcore sonics, and dizzying time signatures informed by progressive rock,...
View ArticleGiant Sand – Returns To Valley Of Rain (2018)
Valley of Rain was Tucson’s Giant Sand’s debut album recorded in 1983, and eventually released by 1985. It included Howe Gelb on vocals, guitar and Winston Watson on drums for most of it, Tommy...
View Article