Sea Ray - Stars at Noon
Chamber pop don’t stop. With its latest full-length, Stars at Noon, the Brooklyn-based Sea Ray has created a record that shimmers, sparkles and downright revels in its own glorious shoegazing wash of sound... read more
June Panic - Hope You Fail Better
Already notable for his adenoidal croon, nascent pop melodies and startlingly evocative writing, and having waxed poetic on everything from circumcision to Heideggarian philosophy, June Panic had yet to deliver his breakthrough release... read more
Southern Culture on the Skids - Mojo Box
You can still smell the club-smoke drifting off the first track of SCOTS' first album in four years, Mojo Box. “Smiley Yeah Yeah Yeah,” is a sexed-up, get-‘em-out-on-the-floor shuffle... read more
Sorta - Little Bay
“You’ve been just about everywhere, except for where you oughta be,” sings Trey Johnson, lead singer and principle songwriter of Dallas-based Sorta, on their second full-length offering, Little Bay. The line just about sums up the record... read more
The Beatles - Let It Be... Naked
Let It Be is the orphan of The Beatles’ 13-album canon. It’s the record they couldn’t be bothered to finish, the one fans have argued about for decades... read more
Mark McKay - Live From the Memory Hotel
The first song Alejandro Escovedo ever wrote was “The Rain Won’t Help You When It’s Over.” Some writers are just that good from their first shot. Listening to Live From the Memory Hotel, I get the feeling Mark McKay might be such an artist... read more
The Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed
The Mountain Goats’ approach has changed very little since 1995. That’s to say, singer-songwriter John Darnielle’s approach has changed very little. In 12 releases—three 12-inches, three singles compilations, an EP, and five full-length albums—the songs have remained doggedly simple... read more
Robert Deeble - 13 Stories
On his third album, Deeble uses little more than an acoustic guitar and his winsome Jeff Tweedy croon to maneuver through a stark landscape littered with lonely idealists and broken metaphors... read more
The Sleepy Jackson - Lovers
Not too long ago, the patchwork quilt of styles Australia band The Sleepy Jackson wove into its first full-length, Lovers, would probably be hailed as a response to cultural fragmentation, media overload, etc.—the usual postmodern suspects... read more
Tracy Spuehler - Six Three One
If the thudding bass line that announces the opening of Six Three One sounds familiar, it’s not only because the song appeals to the hallmarks of effortlessly fun road music, but because it happens to be weaving itself into your memory files by virtue of a Nissan commercial... read more
Young And Sexy - Life Through One Speaker
Thank God for irony. Vancouver’s Young and Sexy are Paul Hixon Pittman and Lucy Brain. They may or may not be sexy, but they’re certainly getting older, and they’re not particularly happy about it... read more
The Coral - Magic and Medicine
The fabulous ’60s refuse to die. Try to hearken back to a time before Dylan and Lennon and McCartney re-invented the art of songwriting and hitmakers could still get by with “maybe-baby” and “you-true” rhymes. The Coral remember that time, and it writes the songs to prove it... read more
Stephin Merritt - Pieces of April
In retrospect, it’s astonishing how long it took the world to notice The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs. When the 3-disc magnum opus dropped in 1999, Stephin Merritt and Co. were already famous, but only on the Lower East Side... read more
Guided By Voices - The Best of Guided By Voices
I’ll admit it—I never liked Guided By Voices. Pretty much the same way I thought tight vintage t-shirts with ironically cheery iron-ons were insufferably pretentious. And let’s face it—there’s a daunting amount of GBV you’d have to pick through to find the choice material assembled on Human Amusements... read more
Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime
Talking Heads’ real achievement was the creation of pop music combining passion with self-conscious braininess. Early singles and album cuts—which dominate the first disc of their new boxed set, Once In a Lifetime—remain startlingly fresh... read more
Teenage Fanclub - A Short Cut to Teenage Fanclub
Though on occasion they’ve been justly recognized as Scotland’s greatest power-pop band, it’s arguable that few—aside from their critics and musical peers—have fully recognized the consistent excellence of Teenage Fanclub... read more
Counting Crows - Films About Ghosts
Counting Crows’ uncanny ability to merge roots-oriented songcraft with commercial-radio aspirations has always defined them more readily than any of their individual songs, albums or members... read more
Sheryl Crow - The Very Best Of
Nowhere is the axiom “familiarity breeds contempt” better realized than in modern pop-radio formats. So it’s no surprise that an artist like Sheryl Crow—with enough solid hits to dominate this 17-track career-summary release—is thought of more in terms of star power and glamour shots than as a serious singer-songwriter... read more
Mary Chapin Carpenter - The Essential
Carpenter went to an Ivy League college and worked for a human rights organization (funded by R.J. Reynolds tobacco) until Columbia Nashville scooped her up in 1986. Her literate songwriting and musical blend of folk, rock, blues, singer-songwriter and country goes against every formula Nashville ever loved... read more
Wyclef Jean - Greatest Hits
Earlier this year, Columbia dropped a sad, inadequate Fugees’ Greatest Hits, a depressing testimony to the willingness of record execs to cash in on the interests of fans. Fortunately, this Greatest Hits gives Wyclef’s post-Fugees’ solo-work and collaborations a more respectful and complete treatment... read more
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