Liz Phair’s Powerful Timidity
Liz Phair is intent on making relics and shrines of her failures and flaws. There’s romance in the way she describes emptiness and loneliness.
alternative rock
Gorillaz’s ‘The Mountain’ Is a Shining Ode to Life and Loss
On The Mountain, Gorillaz render the cinema of life, with its frankness and earnest-heartedness, as naturally as anything they’ve created.
Lucid Express Lay on the Sweetness for ‘Instant Comfort’
Lucid Express might be restless and eager to defy pigeonholing and complacency. That’s good, but in the process, they’ve made an album that often feels overstuffed.
Morrissey Is an Incorrigible Sentimentalist
Morrissey’s Make-Up Is a Lie is a love letter to Paris: schmaltzy, befuddling, arresting, but, most of all, HIM.
Gorillaz at 25 Are a Cultural Force for the Good
Assuming personal stability is necessary for collective betterment, it’s high time that Gorillaz share their newest, loving, bizarre journey with the rest of the world.
Shinedown’s ‘Rock the Country’ Controversy Proves Nothing Is Safe from Politics
Years of kindness and calls for unity from a band like Shinedown, whose very name implies radiant light, warrant a thoughtful, rather than reactive, pause.
Kerrin Connolly Swings for the Fences on Brilliant LP
Kerrin Connolly has stepped up her game, with smart, sophisticated arrangements and an arsenal of pop songs that are a quantum leap from earlier music.
Smashing Pumpkins Deliver on Grunge and Grandeur
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was a huge triumph in 1995, elevating the Smashing Pumpkins to global icons during their 1996 world tour.
Noise Rock Band Unsane’s Chris Spencer Is Committed
The lead singer of the New York noise institution Unsane, Chris Spencer, talks about the reissue of their classic Occupational Hazard.
KEELEY’s New Album Sports Soaring Guitars
Rock guitars form the central DNA of KEELEY’s new record, Girl on the Edge of the World, for all the glory it can muster.
Scott McCloud Powerfully Reflects on the Past
Girls Against Boys singer Scott McCloud shows a quieter, more reflective side in this addictive collection of solo tracks, Forever.
Georgia Knight Is Caught in Desire
What makes Georgia Knight stand out lies in the trip-hop-laced numbers, wherein pulsive and gothic loops are set against breathy vocals and diaristic lyrics.