Album Reviews – Page 5 – Spinning Platters

Album Review: Jenny Lewis, ‘The Voyager’

jenny lewis the voyager

Jenny Lewis is back! And, she’s brought herself with her. The Voyager is Lewis’ first solo record in six years, and appropriately named due to the long journey the new collection of songs took to find themselves together on a record. Since Rilo Kiley officially split in 2011, Lewis involved her talented musicianship in a few endeavors, meanwhile she dealt with a long bout with insomnia and the death of her father. The Voyager is a pronouncement of her strength and resilience. The record enshrouds brutal honesty and confessions within a blanket of summer pop jangles and melodious hooks.

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Album Review: The She’s – Dreamers EP

I’m a little burnt out and cynical at the age of 37 (in a row), and I often find things that used to be interesting to me (slot machines, the NBA) feel absolutely pointless. Next thing I know, I feel like Stan does after his 10th birthday in the South Park where everything sounds like shit to him. Luckily for you, the She’s single-handedly prevent me from being an asshole, at least while listening to these six new tracks. Continue reading “Album Review: The She’s – Dreamers EP”

Album Review: Liars – Mess

Rating: Silver

Seven albums in and Liars are still one of the most notorious and formidable bands around. From their debut They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top to this year’s Mess, they’ve continued to defy expectations and challenge listeners. With each release the stacks have been raised and Liars have met these expectations by taking their music in a completely different direction. From their dance punk origins through the post punk and even noise offerings of Drums Not Dead to the more subdued but darker Sisterworld they’ve refused to stay true to one identity and in turn their identity has become protean and malleable. This can be an admirable trait in an artist but it can also be a hindrance as the artist’s allegiances begin to shift with the changing trends their artistic integrity is challenged. This is the quagmire that Liars finds themselves in with Mess.
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Album Review: Damaged Bug – Hubba Bubba

Rating: Silver
Somehow, in-between putting Thee Oh Sees on hiatus, relocating to Southern California, and preparing to release another Thee Oh Sees album, John Dwyer has found time for another solo project. Hubba Bubba, his debut album as Damaged Bug, has Dwyer abandoning his fuzzy guitars for an even fuzzier synthesizer. But this foray into electronica isn’t Dwyer’s attempt at making a Depeche Mode album. Hubba Bubba sounds much more like a marijuana influenced Suicide album than an 80’s new wave rehash like so many artist are doing right now. The emphasis is placed on minimalist synth riffs behind Dwyer’s robotic vocals.

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Album Review: Angel Olsen – Burn Your Fire for No Witness

Rating: Gold

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Album Review: Fanfarlo – Let’s Go Extinct

Rating: Bronze+
On their third full length, Let’s Go Extinct, London’s Fanfarlo deliver their most ambitious and yet most distant and uneven album to date. Though the album is well produced and performed to perfection, the music falls flat due to Fanfarlo’s reluctance to take the risks necessary to set them apart in a crowded genre. This seems like a paradox when the band is taking on bigger themes with even bigger production, but for all the grandeur at the surface, there are no new or imaginative takes on the genre nor is there any genre defining moment that would solidify Fanfarlo as an important part of the Baroque pop scene. Instead, the album bogged down by mediocre songs and overwrought imagery. That’s not to say the album lacks imagination or is devoid of musical highlights; it’s just that the album, as a whole, fails to deliver upon its ambitious promises.

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Album Review: Soft Cotton County – The Man Who Walked on the Moon EP

Hi, this review isn’t Troy McClure. You may remember this EP from such Spinning Platters posts as “Individual Writers’ Lists: The Best Albums of 2013.” You’ll see there I made this my second-favorite record of 2013. And it’s an EP, so it is a breeze to listen to.

I have a … soft spot in my heart for Soft Cotton County. They’ve straddled the line between ambient and indie pop for about four years now. Some call it “dreampop.” I call it “cloudcore.” You can, too, but no one will know what you’re talking about. They’ve been firing out an EP roughly once per year, although a full-length may be in the works soon. We’ll see. Continue reading “Album Review: Soft Cotton County – The Man Who Walked on the Moon EP“

Album Review: Painted Palms – Forever

San Francisco based duo Painted Palms thrive in a world of disconnection. Whether it be their creative process, in which members Reese Donohue and Christopher Prudhomme write independently and then collaborate over the internet, or their lyrical content, which dwells upon the things that cannot be communicate. Painted Palms writes about the kind of isolation that can only be a product of this digital age. Yet this isolation rarely feels like a prison. From the propulsive guitars in “Hypnotic” to the saccharine psych pop of the title track “Forever” these songs ooze with curiosity and imagination.
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Album Review: Braids – Flourish//Perish

It’s getting difficult to determine which is Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s side project: the psychedelic pop band Braids, or the dreamy, synth-pop duo Blue Hawaii. Both are developing into major contributors in the burgeoning Montreal music scene and between the two bands, Preston’s output over the past three years is almost prodigious. But where she once had two disparate projects, she now has two very similar bands evolving in the same direction. That’s why it’s easier to appreciate Flourish//Perish, the newly released EP from Braids, in the context of Blue Hawaii’s 2013 release Untogether.

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Album Review: Melt-Banana – Fetch

Melt-Banana are one of those bands that I consider to be a rite of passage for anyone that is a serious music listener. They essentially invented the genre of music known as “spazz.” At one point in time, a friend of mine referred to them as “Barely listenable. Which is why I insist in listening to them frequently.” They’ve recently released their 9th studio record, Fetch, their first record in five years. They are also about to embark on their first tour of the US as only the core duo: vocalist Yasuko Onuki and guitarist Ichirou Agata, which their breakneck drum parts being performed by a computer instead of a human. The band will be hitting The Oakland Metro Operahouse on November 16th. Tickets available here!

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