‘WOMB’ Reclaims Purity Ring’s Distinctive Electropop
Although Purity Ring's WOMB never stops sounding good, the bops came easier in 2012. WOMB is an effortful return to form for the electropop duo.
4ad
Lost Classic Or Self-Indulgent Folly? Gene Clark’s ‘No Other’ Redefines Country Rock
A flop in 1974, but now looked on as one of popular music's finest albums, does this expansive 4AD reworking of Gene Clark's No Other confirm its greatness, or reveal a case of the emperor's new clothes?
Pixx’s ‘Small Mercies’ Is Strange Yet Endearing
Despite the mostly upbeat nature of Pixx's Small Mercies, there's a dread surrounding its world.
The National’s ‘I Am Easy to Find’ Is a Tangle of Beautiful, Messy Humanity
The National's eighth album is not as easy to locate or to live with, as its title suggests, but it contains passages of sublime beauty and grace.
Deerhunter’s Transcendent Trajectory
Deerhunter's Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? and Cryptograms are antithetical twins -- shattered mirror images, whose fragments echo each other and reflect Deerhunter's beginnings of and return to inspired experimentation.
Big Thief’s ‘U.F.O.F.’ Embraces the Unknown and the Unknowable
Big Thief's third album U.F.O.F. is a sublime odyssey where the journey blithely overshadows the destination. U.F.O.F. is an almost perfect album.
Beirut Returns with Another Exquisite World Music Experiment in ‘Gallipoli’
On Gallipoli, Beirut bridges indie music with traditional world music elements, creating a work of somber beauty.
The Lemon Twigs Have Written a Rites of Passage Musical About a Chimp
On Go to School, the Lemon Twigs have taken a lot of what made the first part of the 1970's vibrant and colorful and fascinating and applied those things to a contemporary work.
tUnE-yArDs Dial Back Their World Sound on ‘I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life’
New England duo tUnE-yArDs shoot for a more accessible sound on their fourth studio album, I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life.
Methyl Ethel: Everything Is Forgotten
Methyl Ethel might not forge anything very unique in their introspection, yet their power to possess still manages to yield results.
Various Artists: Day of the Dead
Aaron and Bryce Dessner have masterfully assembled a dizzying array of contemporary artists to reinterpret the songs of the Grateful Dead.