Ben Jelen - Ex-Sensitive
Custard Records (7/17/07)
Rock / Alternative
What struck me first when listening to this Scottish-born, New York-based rocker is how versatile he is. Every track seems to jump genre and melody with ease and comfort—from Death Cab for Cutie in the song “Pulse” to what seems like a track from the soundtrack of [...]
The Aliens - Astronomy for Dogs
Astralwerks (6/19/07)
Rock / Psychedelic
Rob Gordon: I will now sell four copies of The Three EPs by The Beta Band.
Dick: Go for it.
[Rob plays the record]
Beta Band Customer: Who is this?
Rob Gordon: The Beta Band.
Beta Band Customer: It’s good.
Rob Gordon: I know.
—High Fidelity (2000)
The Aliens, a reunion of the abovementioned Beta [...]
Okay, so here it goes. Are you in a band? Do you think that you don’t suck? Are you an un-chubby Ben Gibbard, or an un-bearded James Mercer, or perhaps even an un-British Sting? Prove it, you little jerk! Are you sick of only playing for your high school talent [...]
Straylight Run - The Needles the Space
Universal/Republic (6/19/07)
Rock / Alternative / Emo
When I heard that I was going to do a review of Straylight Run, a thin shudder ran down my spine—I remembered them being an emo band. When I got the album and the cover had a Far East psychedelic religious montage of [...]
A Fine Frenzy (which I believe is one person… Alison Sudol) is a sassy red-headed piano player in the kindred spirit of Tori Amos and Regina Spektor. Her album, One Cell in the Sea, is due out July 17, and I must say, jump on this bandwagon now before it gets too full. [...]
As of late, all of my review time has been spent reviewing albums that record companies send me and these albums, for the most part, really suck. Luckily, I don’t spend all of my listening time with these albums. Here is a quick review for some of my favorite albums in my iPod [...]
Driver Side Impact - The Very Air We Breathe
Victory Records (5/29/07)
Rock / Emo
There is this book that everyone talks about called When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Harold Kushner, that tries, to a better degree than I ever could, to explain God’s reasoning behind hurting good people.
Here is my opinion of [...]
Williams Street Presents: Warm & Scratchy
Various labels (5/21/07)
Indie Rock
Download it for free at AdultSwim.com
Adult Swim.com’s commitment to providing our audience with cool free stuff continues on May 21 (TODAY) when our biggest downloadable album yet hits the site (http://www.adultswim.com) like a tidal wave. Made of rock. Oh yeah. … Sponsored by Esurance, the Warm & [...]
Before the Music Dies [DVD]
B-Side Entertainment (12/12/06)
Documentary (Unrated)
93 minutes
As Roger Ebert said of An Inconvenient Truth, I shall say of this film: If you are a music lover, “you owe it to yourself to see this film.”
This film came to me, as all grassroots revolution material should, in a blank manila envelope with no [...]
Soular - Love Crash Heal
Astonish Entertainment (4/10/07)
Rock / Pop
Like Muse’s immature younger brother, Soular wanders through 40.3 minutes of whiney, unoriginal pop ballads that border on absolute meaninglessness. They try so hard to take themselves so seriously, that somewhere it was forgotten that they are supposed to entertain an audience, not their own flawed [...]