Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
When their members get around the age of fifty, most bands have packed it in. Predictable patterns. Old canards. Comfortable constructive crutches to lean on.
Not Mission Of Burma. Continue reading “Album Review: Mission Of Burma – The Sound The Speed The Light”
Reverend and the Makers come from Sheffield, which gives them a huge head start in my book with that being the home of my all time favorite, Jarvis Cocker, and many others such as The Human League and Arctic Monkeys. This is a British band I had heard of but never really listened to. A French Kiss In The Chaos is the band’s second full length album following on from 2007’s The State Of Things which reached #5 in the UK charts. The album was released July 29th in the UK but currently shows no signs of a US release.
Continue reading “Album Review: Reverend And The Makers — A French Kiss In The Chaos”
How We Became is the album everyone forgot to notice when it came out last fall. Then again, the only people that could have noticed it live in England. America, I present to you the Jeremy Warmsley.
I stumbled upon Jeremy Warmsley on my quest to go through as many Blogotheque take-away shows as possible. There Jeremy Warmsley was hidden, gangly and unassuming in front of a church, armed only with his acoustic guitar and his warbley voice. I was smitten. And so I found my way to How We Became. Continue reading “Album Review: Jeremy Warmsley — How We Became”
This week at Spinning Platters was the Kylie Minogue show. In one day, she took over our #1 all-time most-read post as well as giving us the busiest day in our site’s history. Cheers to Kylie! I hope you enjoy your time in America as much as we are. So who won the battle for second place? Continue reading “Week in Review: Top 5 Posts for Sept 25 — Oct 1”
I’ve been putting a lot of thought into how to approach this review. It’s not that Why There Are Mountains from Cymbals Eat Guitars is a particularly bad album; there are some real good things about it. But listening to it is like being in a bad relationship, let me explain. Continue reading “Album Review: Cymbals Eat Guitars — Why There Are Mountains”
Expressions by Music Go Music releases on Secretly Canadian on October 6, 2009
Music Go Music are a recent discovery of mine. When I saw them open for Little Boots at The Independent a couple of weeks ago, I made remarks about how they’re well on their way to being my favorite band. Since then, I’d been waiting to get my hands on their debut album, Expressions. I finally did yesterday, and I’ve been spending all day long listening to it and finding out interesting facts about the band. If I told you that I ordered the vinyl from Insound twenty minutes ago, would you think I might like the album? Continue reading “Album Review: Music Go Music — Expressions”
I’m not sure what I was expecting from this “supergroup” of modern indie/folk but it is not what I got. The album opens with a drum machine, some sort of harp imitation, and Jim James’ ethereal falsetto. My carpool-mate responded to this by saying, “What is this? The slow jam from a Backstreet Boys album!?!” Not what is expected from a group called Monsters of Folk. I don’t know about the folk part, but the members of the band: Jim James (My Morning Jacket), M. Ward, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes) are monsters of the indie scene. The question remains: when they come together, do you get something better than the sum of its parts? Continue reading “Album Review: Monsters of Folk — Monsters of Folk”
When Pouria started writing this weekly column, he said there might be weeks where he was too busy to listen to 30-or-so albums. I said, “no problem, we can get a guest columnist on those weeks.” So when he told me this week that he was too busy doing stuff like seeing Bon Iver to write this week’s column, I said “wait, you were serious about that?” Since I hadn’t arranged a guest, I’m doing it myself. Let’s just say that doing this is a lot harder than Pouria makes it look. Now, on to the mini-reviews. Continue reading “New Release Round Up 9/22/09 — 29 Instant Album Reviews”
Whatever you think about the new Muse album, The Resistance, you’re right. If you love it, you have nothing to be ashamed of. If you hate it, you’re definitely within your rights to do so. I don’t think this is a polarizing record. I think it’s an affirming record. It’s not going to change anyone’s mind on the band; rather, your opinion of Muse will be rewarded by what you’ll find. So what will you find? Continue reading “Album Review: Muse — The Resistance”
In the world of hyper-literate esoterock fathered by Collin Meloy and nursed by Joanna Newsom came the Wild Beasts to remind us it should never be taken seriously. Their debut album Limbo, Panto along with their first five singles took the train The Decemberists made out of antique English imagery and lyrical grandiloquence and drove it off cliff, which is, frankly, where it belonged in the first place. Continue reading “Album Review: Wild Beasts — Two Dancers”