Vinylworthy

    There's a line in the romantic comedy Music and Lyrics where the lead actor says "I'd say that you can take all the novels in the world, and not one of them will make you feel as good as quickly as "I got sunshine, on a cloudy day / when it's cold outside, I got the month of May."". His jab at depth acting all important and superior over immediacy struck a chord with my young self, and has stuck with me ever since. Pop music isn't inherently stupid, and indie music isn't inherently deep. I love it when a band comes along and puts both sides of the argument in their place--in 2009, that was Phoenix. The Killers and The Strokes had already dominated the airwaves by the time this album came around, and to a certain extent it's a wonder Phoenix was able to arm wrestle their way into the crowded Post Ramones leather jacket space. The Killers, of course, were attacking the genre with glitzy sheen, and The Strokes heaped sweat, boredom, and...

I think this was inevitable. Robin Pecknold went to college and came out an academic. What else is there to do but make complex compositions, challenging melodies, and motifs that rub against each other like burlap? It's the mid-career turnaround: fill your head with education or confidence and act like your fans are either brilliant like you or just not yet on your level. We've seen it so many times before: Radiohead, The Killers (hah didn't see that comparison did you?), Bon Iver. I'm being mean to serve my purpose. The truth is, sometimes there's just no more to be wrung from the towel. I have to imagine there's some level of panic for bands that realize they've come to this point. They survived the sophomore slump only to discover not having ideas might be better than hating any that come along. And not everyone can be Beck. There's lots of good news to go around: Pecknold was clearly inspired, Fleet Foxes didn't lose their mood, and the profess...

Kishi Bashi must be an amazing person to be. There's a contentedness in everything I've ever heard him make in his solo career that I wish I could have. If you've heard his music, I get that initially that doesn't come across. He is, after all, making violin-centric progressive rock. The fact that it works at all is impressive, but it's been a slow, but noticeable, slide away from the synaptic dazzler 151a . What I wanted from Kishi was....that. What Kishi wants, I would imagine, is to make whatever makes him happy. Being experimental and good has to be taxing. Turns out, he doesn't need to be experimental to still be really good. It was always clear he could put out a great, simple song. Bright Whites and Q&A both did a great folky job, but I always assumed they would be a breather. Omoiyari takes these examples as building blocks for a mid-career breather; on that scale, it's easy to accept a quieter album. When everything is as warm and sunny as t...

  I don't even know how I heard of this group. I do listen to similar music, so probably some suggestion on music streaming services I decided to take a chance on. They don't seem to be very popular, and I even had a hard time looking them up later. That's something I hope will change, because Grow Your Garden has that rare "diamond in the rough" quality I haven't heard since Alt-J. I love a great non-traditional melody, and that's doing a lot of the work here. My music history is full of left-field musicians like Tune Yards, Radiohead, Little Dragon, the aformentioned Alt-J, Kishi Bashi....surprise, at least a little, is necessary for me. If you like all those bands, good news! it seems so does Anima. All of them have a love of droning, genre switches, and delicacy/headbanging dynamics, and Anima have seemed almost to have taken something from each group wholesale. I do, as a result of that, find myself having a tough time describing any opinions I have ...

    I've been a massive fan of what Jungle is since the very beginning. Tom Cardy should have been talking about Jungle when he said "You're a million degrees, but still cool", but it's not like Jungle isn't lo-fi. They just aren't content to be so sleepy all the time about it. They are, however, content to remain laser focused on cultivating the Jungle sound, forever living in a steamy Miami street during the day and a steamy disco bar in the night. Strange, then, that they live in the UK, unable to withstand the LA heat (I'm sure that wasn't the primary reason, I'm just fitting their move to my rhetoric). A friend of mine says if you've heard one Jungle song, you've heard them all. I don't particularly agree, but I think I'm more of a fan of loops, samples, and production. There's no denying that Volcano is following the path as tightly as they always have, but what's interesting is that the path does feel wider th...

  I think I'm a little salty Grizzly Bear never got the attention that Vampire Weekend did in the zeitgeist. This isn't to say people give them poor reviews; the band is well recieved by critics. It's also not unfair, as their music isn't quite as immediately enjoyable as the Koenig Crew. There was a moment that it felt possible when Vekatimest came out, as the radio was ready for acts like Of Monsters and Men or Mumford and Sons to play arena folkrock all day long. Grizzly Bear just couldn't convert. I suppose I'm happy for that though, as what we got wouldn't really have done well for that demographic anyway. And what we got....oh Neptune is it good. It's weird, though, that so much attention was given to Yellow House , looking back. The sound was there, but the specifics and the songwriting were still really weak. It didn't always feel like it was going somewhere. So often it's easy to praise a band that walks away from a traditional verse-...

Sometimes a band comes along that's just really hard to describe. On one side of a particular coin, it's bands that are so precisely themselves that they can't be stuffed in a box with other artists. On the other side, it's those with no identity, jumping from box to box. One can't be generalized clearly, the other is too general to gain clarity from it. Neither side is inherently good or bad. Being original is hard, and being heard in a crowd is also hard.  Half-Alive have crafted an album that clearly hasn't reached for originality, content to dance joyously and faceless like the figures on the cover. Certainly there's talent to go around for the trio of Josh Taylor, Brett Kramer, and J Tyler Johnson as evidenced by their moving target of style. There are many moments where this serves them well along the way--and some where it works against them. If this is where they start their career, they're ahead of a lot of acts and can build quickly. The mos...

I'm going to do my level best to not go on too long about the first song on this album. I sat down to begin this review, and only now have I found out that the first song is a whopping 10:38 odyssey. I've listened to this album countless times (maybe someday I'll do a review on something I don't adore yeah?), and never thought about the time it was taking. It's hard to do much else but listen when this song is on. I'm having trouble right now . It's late, and all I want to do is finish every song, noting all the intricacies and humming along to the high notes, albeit an octave down for I have not that range. Previous to this album, Punch Brothers released Who's Feeling Young Now?, and it was the first time the band sounded like they had found their zone. Now, with The Phosphorescent Blues, they've proven they can make an album to remember.  For better or worse, I'm sure most of the bluegrass community has an opinion on what Thile does and how h...

  I think one of the things that sets me apart from a lot of other music reviewers is my lack of music knowledge. By that I mean I don't know much about the musicians, who they worked with on various albums most of the time, and any worthwhile music history before...1996ish. I just really like listening to music and talking about it. I'm not good at this gig. I should research albums, find interviews, or just learn about old bands past what my dad considers to be good music. I don't because I'm a blogger, taking a casual interest in creative writing. Maybe that gives me a more immediate perspective on the stuff I talk about. What's more likely is if I learned more about what's out there in music, I'd change my mind about a lot of the stuff I currently like. Being educated is always better than being a dolt. So take it with a grain of salt: any old dolt can explain why Dan Croll is so damn easy to listen to. I've been a fan of Croll's work since the...