Snail Mail, the solo project of Baltimore native Lyndsey Jordan, dropped their long-anticipated full length album, Lush, just last week. The baby-faced blonde juts out a defiant chin, her gaze steady and unflinching as she ruminates on unrequited love. The songwriting of Lush is blunt and pragmatic. She is both vulnerable and resilient, which makes listening to this record feels like reading your kid sister’s diary. What sets this album apart is the departure from the grainy scratch of lo-fi recordings as Snail Mail graduates from the invisibility of DIY culture. Boxed up compactly in 10 songs, the studio-produced […]

Beach House @ the Tower Theater on July 26th in support of their just-released seventh album, 7.

  Neko Case is a singer-songwriter known for her uncommonly clarion vox, acerbic whimsy, nature mothering, and fiery red hair. But after the public exorcism of the #MeToo movement and the burning down of her Vermont home, the soft rock singer was forced to confront a new set of ugly and harsh realities. And she uses her new album, Hell-On, to help her do it. There is some serious introspection on the record, with the the lead-off title track diving right in to question who or what God is, finally defining him as “a lusty tire fire” – a line […]

  It was a brutally cold February in my sophomore year when I stumbled upon TV Girl somewhere in a Spotify rabbit hole. French Exit, their debut album, drove its catchy hooks into my ears and dragged me from the bitter, isolated cave of hibernation that I bury myself in every winter. French Exit was a splatter of color in the dismal, grey cityscape. It was a humid exhale into still lungs, the world ballooned with breath. TV Girl’s latest album, Death Of A Party Girl, sustains the dream pop, neo-psychedelic feel of previous work. Petering delivers prosaic storytelling in […]

RELATED: Spiritualized have announced news of their new studio album, And Nothing Hurt, out September 7th via Fat Possum in the US and Bella Union in the UK/Europe.  Spiritualized have also announced select live performances in support of the album, including two U.S. dates.  From the opening lullaby of “A Perfect Miracle” through to the Morse Code fadeout at the close of “Sail on Through,” Spiritualized wrap layer upon layer of gloriously transcendent sound together to create a mesmerizing and cinematic collection of songs. There are points where the waves of blissful noise are almost overwhelming – the thunderous climax of “On […]

  BY SOPHIE BURKHOLDER Twenty-two years after his breakout debut Beautiful Freak, Mark Oliver Everett (a.k.a. Eels, a.k.a. E) released his twelfth studio album, The Deconstruction. This new album comes after a four-year hiatus from the group, over the course of which E got married, divorced, and became a first-time father. Much like the other work from Eels, the songs of this new album have dark themes, but perhaps this time with a more therapeutic focus, as E used the hiatus to re-examine music as a coping mechanism for depression. Eels will be at Union Transfer on June 10 in […]

  THE NEW YORKER: Archy Marshall, the enigmatic South London singer best known as King Krule, is a creature of the night. Known since the age of 15 as a preternaturally wise and unpredictable songwriter, Mr. Marshall, now 23, has assumed the mantle of a bard for the shrouded underclass, churning his anxiety, depression and insomnia into swampy, after-dark tales for the mischievous and disaffected. On songs that mix jazz, punk, dub, hip-hop and the affectations of a zonked-out lounge crooner, he has cut what he calls “gritty stories about the streets” with a “sensitive and romantic side,” aiming to […]

  Hop Along, a locally-sourced Philadelphia band fronted by the gilded growl of Frances Quinlan, is best defined as undefinable, not quite punk and not quite folk. Their first two albums, Get Disowned and Painted Shut, are marked by lyrics that read more like short stories, grounded in the majesty of the mundane and smothered in a gorgeous squall buzzing guitar riffs. Quinlan’s songwriting evades the cliches and corniness that 21st century punk rock so often falls prey to, while maintaining its rasp and verve. The new Bark Your Head Off, Dog maintains Hop Along’s warbly effervescence, but this time […]

On June 15, Yep Roc Records will release Nick Lowe’s ‘Tokyo Bay/Crying Inside’ EP, the “elegant and nearly devastating” (New York Times) songwriter’s first new music in five years, and first non-holiday recordings in some seven years. The four-song EP features the two new Lowe originals of its title, plus covers of songs popularized by Dionne Warwick (“Heartbreaker”) and Cliff Richard (“Travellin’ Light”). Lowe is backed by his Yep Roc label mates and frequent touring partners Los Straitjackets on all four songs, which were recorded at the Diamond Mine in Queens, NY in late 2017 (Lowe’s first New York sessions […]

NOISEY: Over the years, Kurt Vile has proven pretty good at whatever he role he decides to fill, whether it’s shaggy solo folk singer, leader of a barn-burning rock band, a sideman in the War on Drugs, or a space-cowboy counterpart in duets with Courtney Barnett. Vile joins Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen on IFC’s final season of Portlandia, playing Brownstein’s personal roadie. MORE

SLATE: The trailer for Janelle Monáe’s new album, Dirty Computer, didn’t prepare us for this. Monae dropped two new singles on Thursday, and, to paraphrase one of them, they make us feel so effing good. First up is “Make Me Feel,” in which Monáe proves why she’s the natural successor to fill the void left behind by Prince’s death in 2016. Not only does the accompanying music video show off Monae’s androgynous style and unbelievably smooth moves, it also quickly turns into a bisexual anthem as Monáe bounces back and forth between male and female love interests, the latter of […]