Soulwax Scare Us on ‘All Systems Are Lying’
The more you listen to Soulwax’s new album, the less reassuring and more frightening it becomes. It delivers its message in concentrated and relentless doses.
Adam Sobsey
Adam Sobsey is a PopMatters staff writer. His 2025 memoir A Jewish Appendix is published by Spuyten Duyvil. He is the author of Chrissie Hynde: A Musical Biography (2017, University of Texas Press) and co-author of Bull City Summer (2014, Daylight Books).
Grant-Lee Phillips Sings Lullabies for Grownups
Grant-Lee Phillips hasn’t lost his intuitive feel for a dreamy sort of Western and Southern American mythopoeia, as in In the Hour of Dust.
The Black Watch Might Be Signaling the Beginning of Their End
With Weird Rooms, John Andrew Fredrick and the Black Watch are at the late height of their powers and perhaps the end of their life as a group.
New Album Takes the Lemon Twigs Into Pop’s Golden Years
The Lemon Twigs’ A Dream Is All We Know displays scholarly mastery of the complex techniques their forbears invented. The sheer musicality is prodigious.
Ty Segall’s ‘Three Bells’ Deepens His Groove
If you like Ty Segall, you’ll get plenty more of what you like about him on Three Bells along with drums used as a compositional tool and a rhythmic one.
Peter Jesperson’s ‘Euphoric Recall’ Remembers His Wild Years with the Replacements
In Euphoric Recall, the Replacements’ manager Peter Jesperson is often as drunk as the band is, little more in control of their careening path than they are.
‘Cat Power Sings Dylan’ Revives a Legendary Bob Dylan Concert
Cat Power’s version of Bob Dylan’s 1966 concert with the Band in Manchester is reverential but not literal and honors the legend more than the facts.
Caleb Nichols Turns Traumatic Pain Into Infectious Pop on ‘Let’s Look Back’
Indie pop could use more queer icons, and Caleb Nichols has what it takes to become one of them as he shows on Let’s Look Back.
Tele Novella Travel to Art-Country on ‘Poet’s Tooth’
Tele Novella are more Brian Wilson than Hank Williams on Poet’s Tooth, a pop band with compositional sophistication waiting to get out of their Austin city limits.
Daniel Guebel’s ‘The Jewish Son’ Invokes Kafka’s ‘Dearest Father’
In The Jewish Son, Daniel Guebel invokes Kafka’s “Dearest Father” to tell the story of a complicated father-son relationship.
‘Where Were You?’ Compiles Leeds Music From 1978-1989
On Where Were You? the Leeds of 1978-1989 sounds like the times, but not a particular place. In that sense, it’s true indie music.
The Pretenders Are Still in Fighting Shape on ‘Relentless’
The title Relentless encourages expectations of a youthful, hard-rock Pretenders album, but it’s dominated by lost-love ballads and slow-burn confessionals.