The last week of July produced an inadvertent first-week sales clash between Chance the Rapper and NF, a Michigan rapper with a significant cult following. NF is orders of magnitude less famous than Chance, but that didn’t stop his album The Search from outselling Chance’s wife-a-palooza The Big Day by …
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Spoon have long been one of the most reliably great rock bands to emerge from the early Aughts indie boom. Their secret weapon has always been their restraint — riffs that simmer but don’t boil, lyrics about cautious hope, air-tight production that plays up their musical economy. It’s what makes …
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With nods to King Crimson, Talking Heads, Death Grips, and many others, London’s Black Midi creates a unique brand of cathartic punishment on their excellent debut. The band’s barely college age (they met at the same prestigious performing arts school that produced Adele and Amy Winehouse), but they’ve attained striking …
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Big Thief‘s third album UFOF creeps up on you. Unlike their previous LPs — 2016’s Masterpiece and 2017’s Capacity — on which sweet-n-sad folk-rock wrapped you in a warm embrace, UFOF sends a shiver down your spine in its simplicity. The album is 43 minutes of gentle, crackling coos from …
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Washington D.C.’s Priests clearly stated their refreshingly bedrock punk-rock concerns with the title of their 2014 EP, Bodies and Control and Money and Power. Their sound was refreshing too, at times recalling the Nineties riot grrrl idealism of Bikini Kill and Bratmobile on songs that took sharp shots at ye …
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