High Violet is anxious, tense, laden with blurry visions that lead to crooked, lonely back streets to wander through while we try to grasp the emotion and reach of each song. It’s never a strain that becomes wearing or tiring, though; in fact, it’s exactly in that tension between depression and desire, anxiety and confidence …
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Reviewer: Nathan Atnikov |
The 2010 Sled Island festival covers no fewer than 17 venues across Calgary’s downtown and inner city, and approximately 12,000 bands are here to take part – or at least it feels that way. And while my goal is to cover as much ground as possible and to try to give you a good sense of what the festival is like, I am only one man. » Read More
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Rating: 5 / 5 Reviewer: Michelle Kennedy |
As summer approaches music blogs explode with promises of “hot summer” releases, hype machines overheat and explode. Suddenly it’s very easy for a whole slew of excellent albums to get lost in the shuffle of big bass-y noise and Lady Gaga’s new video. » Read More
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Rating: 4 / 5 Reviewer: Kevin Hartford |
Montreal-based indie band Stars has two lead vocalists – Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan – and it’s to their credit that they’re able to pull off the boy-and-girl-trading-verses shtick without seeming contrived, cutesy, or overly twee. » Read More
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 Reviewer: Greg Hutton |
Anticipation tends to accompany apprehension when a beloved cult band comes back from an extended hiatus. While a group like Mission of Burma proved that they could still produce albums essential to their discography 20 years after initially breaking up, a diehard’s inescapable fear of the gospel being corrupted is part and parcel of the news of a reformation or fresh material. » Read More
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Rating: 3 / 5 Reviewer: Trent Depue |
When you’re as big as Tom Petty is, you can pretty much do whatever you want. And with as well regarded a career as he has had, he has every right to have that mindset. » Read More
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Rating: 2 / 5 Reviewer: Kevin Hartford |
The Pernice Brothers’ fifth studio album, Goodbye, Killer, is the musical equivalent of a bowl of regular-flavour oatmeal. There’s a lot of nutrition in that bowl – vitamins, complex carbohydrates, fiber – but without sugar and flavouring it’s sort of just a bunch of beige-coloured mush. » Read More
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 Reviewer: Trent Depue |
In the last four years, Portland’s Blitzen Trapper has probably been as busy as any band you can name. With a release of some kind every year in that time » Read More
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Rating: 4 / 5 Reviewer: Trent Depue |
An interesting ring of top-tier musicians has made a Top Five Records of May 2010 list alone is a matter worthy of attention and debate. The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney are among this group » Read More
