Alex G - DSU

Posted 1:08pm Sunday 6th July 2014

Rating: B+ Though DSU is Alex Giannascoli’s first album to be released on Brooklyn-based label Orchid Tapes, it’s the sixth to be uploaded to the 21-year-old’s Bandcamp page (where you can get it for free!). I first heard Alex G’s music through a girl I used to follow on tumblr who would post Read more...

Tweens - Tweens

Posted 4:31pm Sunday 13th April 2014

Rating: B- Although the Cincinnati noise-pop trio are not actually about to enrol in their first year of high school, the name isn’t entirely inappropriate. They’re bratty, they’re full of energy, they’re bored. These guys don’t deliver a lot of thoughtful wordplay or wise life lessons; Read more...

Mac Demarco - Salad Days

Posted 4:50pm Sunday 6th April 2014

Near the end of 2012, i purchased Mac DeMarco’s second LP, 2, on the back of hearing “Ode to Viceroy” – a sweet love song for his favourite brand of low-cost cigarettes. It was refreshing, genuinely funny and somehow beautifully sincere – I hadn’t heard anything quite like it. However, neither me, Read more...

Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else

Posted 7:01pm Sunday 30th March 2014

Rating: B+ On Cloud nothing’s latest Lp, frontman Dylan Baldi is learning to “focus on what [he] can do [himself].” One thing he can clearly do is write a bunch of powerful, catchy, guitar-driven songs. Once claiming that he approaches guitar more like piano, Baldi’s playing is complex Read more...

The War On Drugs - Lost in the Dream

Posted 5:30pm Sunday 23rd March 2014

“It always gets so hard to see right before the moon,” sings Adam Granduciel, songwriter for The War on Drugs, halfway through their latest LP. It’s a new take on the old cliché, “it’s always darkest before the dawn,” but one that reflects more accurately the 35-year-old’s true longing. Granduciel Read more...

Speedy Ortiz - Real Hair

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014

Grade: A- On Real Hair, the follow-up EP to their excellent 2013 LP Major Arcana, Speedy Ortiz once again prove that they’re not just rehashing ‘90s indie rock, but taking all the irony, angular guitar lines and fuzz that characterised that decade, and making it their own. Yes, they sound Read more...

Real Estate - Atlas

Posted 4:35pm Sunday 9th March 2014

Grade: A- Atlas is Real Estate’s first record in three years, the follow up to 2011’s Days. Having enjoyed the last album’s dreamy, guitar-noodley, nostalgia-inducing vibes, I was looking forward to hearing the new one. But whereas Days was lazing-on-a-sunny-afternoon, Atlas is Read more...

Modern Baseball - You're Gonna Miss It All

Posted 4:44pm Sunday 2nd March 2014

Grade: B + If this record had come out seven years ago, it would’ve been a solid fixture in my CD collection; wedged right between A Lesson in Crime and From Under the Cork Tree. With the angst of emo’s old generation like Sunny Day Real Estate and Built to Spill, and the pop-punk energy of Read more...