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Waxahatchee Takes a Turn for the Country on ​'Saint Cloud'

Katie Crutchfield's latest as Waxahatchee is a high point in an already impressive career. Saint Cloud finds an artist operating at the top of her game to produce a thrilling and inspirational work.

Recent
Music

TORRES' 'Silver Tongue' Offers a Subtle Geography of Desire

TORRES' Silver Tongue is her most mature release to date. Its nine songs, all evocative and transporting, strive toward a new vocabulary for connection, confidence, and queer love.

Music

Little Scream Combines Easygoing Pop with Serious Lamentations About Politics and Culture on 'Speed Queen'

Montreal's Little Scream offers up reflections on class and poverty disguised as sweet low-key pop songs on her real grower of an album, Speed Queen.

Music

Mikal Cronin Finds the Groundwork for a Classic with 'Seeker'

After some adventurous wilderness time, Mikal Cronin builds on his indie rock style to draft a compelling new direction with Seeker.

Music

Doing What They Do Best: An Interview With Imperial Teen

Imperial Teen's latest album may be about the state of the world and how hopeless it is. It may also be about how there actually is hope. Roddy Bottum and Lynn Truell reflect on the group's past and present. "When we're at our best, we represent a movement," says Bottum.

Jedd Beaudoin
Music

Imperial Teen Are Masters of Catchy Hooks

Imperial Teen's Now We Are Timeless shows what a veteran band can do when they are locked in together. Highly recommended for fans of the kind of pop-rock that doesn't make the mainstream charts anymore.

Music

Sacred Paws Make Fun and Upbeat Rock Music on 'Run Around the Sun'

Glasgow-based indie poppers Sacred Paws offer up a second album full of brisk, bright songs that draw from several styles, notably Afrobeat and post-punk.

Music

Fruit Bats' 'Gold Past Life' Is an Exhilarating Trip Down Multiple Memory Lanes

Deftly avoiding the pitfalls of nostalgia, Fruit Bats' Gold Past Life takes stock of life from the vantage point of middle age and charts a path forward with hope and no little circumspection, without once feeling sorry for itself.

Music

Titus Andronicus Excel With a Stripped-Down Approach on 'An Obelisk'

On their sixth studio album, New Jersey punk rockers Titus Andronicus, normally associated with big, ambitious gestures, get back to basics.

Music

Apex Manor Returns with "Asked & Answered" (premiere)

Apex Manor (Ross Flournoy) returns after a long break with his first album since 2011, Heartbreak City, and a cracking new single that deals with life's break-ups in "Asked & Answered".

Music

Reigning Sound's 'Abdication... For Your Love' Gets a Welcome Reissue

Reigning Sound's 2011 album, Abdication... For Your Love, reissued on Merge, is a tour de force of grassroots rock and soul.

Music

The Mountain Goats Get Fantastic(al) for 'In League with Dragons'

The Mountain Goats create a complex and vibrant album that moves between worlds with In League with Dragons.

Justin Cober-Lake
Music

​On 'It's Real', Ex Hex Take a More Nuanced Approach to Songwriting

It's Real proves that Ex Hex can draw influences from different eras of rock music and spin them into something that sounds like only them.

Music

Britain's Ibibio Sound Machine Bring Depth to the Dancefloor on 'Doko Mien'

Doko Mien highlights Ibibio Sound Machine's versatility as the group continues to bring Lagos and London together in new ways.

Music

Lambchop Surveys the Senses on 'This (is what I wanted to tell you)'

Lambchop's new album is the musical equivalent of that final "walk" monologue from Synecdoche, New York. It's a heavy listen, but potentially a rapturous one as well, for anyone who has ever experienced a reverie of aging and all it entails.

Music

Martin Frawley's 'Undone at 31' Is an Eclectic and Mostly Joyous Adventure

Martin Frawley's (Twerps) first solo album has a lot of range but not so much anxiety, as he continues to try on musical styles and forms.

Music

Bob Mould Hits the Reset Button with 'Sunshine Rock'

With a new hometown and a fresh perspective, Bob Mould releases a rich, dense, and instantly lovable new album, Sunshine Rock.

Music

William Tyler 'Goes West'

Think of William Tyler's fingers as the wind rattling the leaves on the trees. There is no storm coming, but the gusts have their own power and cannot be ignored. They make a statement.

Music

Fucked Up Holds on to a Never Let Die Attitude on 'Dose Your Dreams'

Fucked Up's Dose Your Dreams compensates for its conceptual emptiness with a sound that blasts on all fronts.

Reviews

The Love Language Outwardly Rejects Uniformity Throughout 'Baby Grand'

Baby Grand is a study of contrasts, as the Love Language's saccharine pop-sensibilities underscore affective lyrics while diverging with razor-sharp instrumentation.

Music

Spider Bags Climb to New Heights of Unbridled Fury on 'Someday Everything Will Be Fine'

Someday Everything Will Be Fine is the best album yet from Spider Bags. It's an effort that pays loving homage to Dinosaur Jr. and other assorted acts that influenced their lurching brand of guitar-fueled madness.

Music

"I Am the Electric Man, After All:" An Interview with Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus

"I don't like being told what to do," Stickles says. "I don't like to delegate too many of the duties related to this rock business of mine."

Juan Edgardo Rodríguez
Interviews

"A Bit of Organization and a Lot of Patience": An Interview with M. Ward

When not being the Him in She & Him or producing for the likes of Mavis Staples, M. Ward just keeps puttin' out solo albums, collaborating with friends, and remaining cryptic as ever.

Music

Trailers for Films That Don't Exist: An Interview with Destroyer

Dan Bejar is a man of many talents, but after the burnout of promoting his breakthrough Kaputt, the man behind Destroyer made a record on his own terms.

Dan Derks
Music

Superchunk: Come Pick Me Up (Reissue)

In 1999 Superchunk released their prettiest album to date thanks to Jim O'Rourke's delicate touch. Now Merge Records releases the album with a handful of gorgeous demos.

Music

Mac McCaughan: Non-Believers

Ultimately, Non-Believers is the kind of album that needs no backstory to endear it or Mac McCaughan to the masses.

Music

Merge's Silver Age: 25 Essential Albums Over 25 Years

To mark Merge Records' silver anniversary, PopMatters picked 25 memorable albums that help tell the label's remarkable history.

Music

The Clientele: Or Thousands of Prizes

The Clientele didn't exactly bring their A-game to this exclusive offer from Merge records. Lucky for us, their B-game is still a good one.

Music

Arcade Fire: Reflektor

With Arcade Fire becoming Hollywood staples, are they remaining true to their intelligent, independent roots or do they suffer from branching out so far?

Music

Radar Brothers - 'Eight' (Album Premiere)

PopMatters offers the online premiere of Eight, the eight album -- obviously -- by venerable Los Angeles band Radar Brothers.

Music

Superchunk: Majesty Shredding

In a year marked by indie comebacks and punk-pop's revival, leave it to Superchunk to show both peers and upstarts alike how it's done.

Music

More Than a Summer Fling: An Interview with Stuart McLamb of the Love Language

On the heels of their Merge debut, Stuart McLamb of the Love Language opens up about signing to the indie mega-label, the major differences in songwriting and recording between the band's debut album and Libraries, and his love of Amy Grant.

Music

Various Artists: Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox

Jeff Mangum, Yo La Tengo, Will Oldham, Stephin Merritt, the Mountain Goats, the late Jay Reatard, and dozens more pay tribute to one of the best songwriters no one has ever heard of -- and what a joy it is to listen to.

Books

Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small by John Cook

Despite some generous editorializing, Our Noise is as engaging (and human) a music industry tale as you're ever going to read.

Music

Just Making Records: An Interview with Portastatic

Mac McCaughan creates string charts and listens to tropicalia while running Merge Records, and he doesn't mind if you haven't listened to Superchunk.

Jon Langmead
Reviews
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