From the twanging riffs and thumping percussion that open the album on the single, “Wild Child”, we know we’re in for a head-bopping, foot-stomping, groovy record. Dropout Boogie is The Black Keys’ eleventh studio album (!) and a conscious return to stripped down hard-nosed bluesy rock ‘n’ roll they first earned a passionate fanbase and later numerous accolades. For the first time in their studio album discography, the Akron, Ohio duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney solicited collaborations from other artists and the result is a river flow of laid back jaunts, comfortable grooves, and a few raw first take recordings. All hail the majesty and imperfections of the blues-rock guitar!
There hasn’t been a debut rock record anticipated as hotly as Wet Leg’s debut in over 20 years. I haven’t seen this kind of prerelease hype since The Strokes’ monster debut Is This It.Continue reading “Album Review: Wet Leg / Wet Leg”
If you don’t know Spoon, you’ve probably still heard a handful of Spoon songs and, unknowingly, are a fan. The rock band from Texas has produced a steady flow of albums since 1993, including a handful of radio singles and major contributions to the Stranger than Fiction soundtrack, culminating (but hopefully not finishing) with their tenth studio album, Lucifer on the Sofa. I would’ve guessed Lucifer on the Sofa as a more likely Cake album title than a Spoon one, but considering the album was mostly conceived and recorded in and around COVID lockdowns, the title is apt in describing the set of ten songs’ lyrical and instrumental battle against one’s own domestic demons. With a stripped-down rock n’ roll sensibility, Spoon has delivered a live-esque studio album that plays like a group artistically re-coalescing together for a spontaneous living room concert, and we’re lucky enough to have a front-row sofa seat.
The beauty of bringing a new body of work out on tour is that it allows the artist to find new ways to connect with their own music, oftentimes giving space for a song or collection of songs to grow and evolve. The performer-audience dynamic allows for both the fan and the songwriter to find new meaning and new layers in a piece of work.
Sadly, many of the best records of 2020 never got that chance to grow with an audience. I’ve spent the better part of a year and a half longing to hear what happens with Diet Cig’s Do You Wonder About Me? once given the chance for a live audience to take it in. Although that has yet to happen, the band has found numerous ways to reconnect with the songs and connect to fans without the opportunity to bring it live. They have done filmed livestreams. They’ve commissioned artists to reinterpret the album as a zine. And now they are blessing us with I Don’t Like Driving Like I Used To, and EP of alternate takes of tracks from Do You Wonder… that were recorded during this ever so lengthy quarantine.
This companion to a genius record is coming your way October 1st. You can presave your copy on your favorite streaming platform immediately.
Also breathing new life into their 2020 release is Thao & The Get Down Stay Down. Temples is probably Thao’s most electric record to date, and like the Diet Cig album, a record that helped ease me through the despair of the last 19 months. On October 29th, she is bringing us Temples – Deluxe Edition, where she strips four Temples standout tracks free of the electronic elements and lays them down on acoustic instruments accompanied by strings, no doubt inspired by her neighbors that she introduced us to during her Tiny Desk Concert.
Preorders of Temples – Deluxe Edition will begin soon!
In typical times, March would be the beginning of the music business’ “year.” Normally, there is a lull of news and new releases between December and February, and March usually starts with the Grammys, allowing everything to “wake up.” We would have a slew of festival line-ups coming through, and everyone looking to make a big year would be starting that cycle with SXSW. Continue reading “Single Review: “Pay Your Way In Pain” by St Vincent / “Leave The Door Open” by Silk Sonic”
These two shows at The Fox Theater in Oakland marked what was basically the last night on the road for what may have been the most challenging tour in Sleater-Kinney’s 25 years on this Earth. Not only were they out to support the single most-divisive record in their catalog, but their long-time drummer, Janet Weiss, abruptly quit the band in the middle of rehearsals.
A lot of hardcore fans felt betrayed. People were demanding refunds because they bought tickets under the impression that they were getting the core trio of Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss and Carrie Brownstein. All of this meant that, instead of hitting the road in celebration of their career, Sleater-Kinney have to prove themselves all over again. They couldn’t rest on their reputation of being the fiercest live band around.
In the year 2001, I was working at a Wherehouse Music in the Financial District of San Francisco, CA. During this time period, we received regular visits from representatives from major record labels who would drop off advance CD’s of the upcoming new releases. Mid-Summer, we got a record called In Search Of… by a band called N*E*R*D. This was a side project of popular producers The Neptunes, with Neptune Pharrell Williams handling all of the lead vocals. Yes, there was a time when people didn’t know who Pharrell Willams was! Continue reading “Spinning Platters Picks Six: Albums That Were Pulled Before Release”
The Center Won’t Hold is possibly the most divisive record of 2019. Months before even a single note was heard outside of the recording studio, when the photo of the band recording with Annie Clark of St. Vincent fame was released, many folks already had their minds made up. I heard declarations from folks that “Annie is going to replace Janet Weiss with a drum machine” and that “it’s just going to be a Carrie solo record.” Other fans were excited about the possible new direction, but those folks seemed to be muted by the naysayers, worried that an outside entity was going to destroy their favorite band. Continue reading “Album Review: Sleater-Kinney — The Center Won’t Hold“
Of all the bands that I’ve been obsessed with over my life time, Ladytron was one that I came to on the later portion of their career. While I appreciate their first two albums, it wasn’t until the dark post-rock infusion of Witching Hour that I my ears suddenly perked up and I realized how much more there was to this band. Even then I wasn’t fully hooked and completely obsessed until Velocifero blew my head apart. To say that I’ve been waiting and anticipating a new Ladytron album since Gravity the Seducer was released almost a decade ago is an understatement of the century – at least in my household – so imagine how excited I was when all the rumors were confirmed by an e-mail from Pledge Music that they were in the studio working on a new album and then later when Spotify notified me that a new single – at the time “The Animals” – had been officially released. I lost my shit. Plain and simple.
The release of Zeppelin Over China (Feb 1st), an album title appropriately conjuring visions of a large scale and high concept endeavor, has every indication of a major milestone for Guided By Voices and frontman Robert Pollard. The double LP album consists of 32 songs and clocks in at 75 minutes (yes, that’s only ~2.5 minutes per song) — no song reaches four minutes. The experience of listening to Zeppelin Over China is a truly cohesive yet rambunctious audio journey, with the tone set immediately with the quick grungy cuts “Good Morning Sir” and “Step of the Wave”. If you aren’t impressed after the first five songs, the extended tracklist won’t win you over by the end. But if you are impressed, or willing to give the remainder a shot, then completing the album feels expectedly rewarding. Continue reading “Album Review: Guided By Voices — Zeppelin Over China“
