Every great album should come with a jumpscare. A moment that makes you stumble a little on a run, stop short on a walk, and jerk your head up when blasting it at home. On Anna von Hausswolff’s phenomenal new album ICONOCLASTS, that jumpscare comes in the form of Iggy Pop’s craggy, trembling bellow, loudly … Continue reading
Tinkling, angelic bells ushered in the most mournful rendition of the Lady in the Radiator’s ascension anthem, “In Heaven,” I’ve ever heard, like a warbling hymn sung at a gravesite scented with night-blooming jasmine. At the conclusion of Xiu Xiu’s live interpretation of Eraserhead’s minimalist whooshing score, performed last week at Brooklyn’s Elsewhere, Jamie Stewart’s … Continue reading
There is a tornado at the heart of Ethel Cain’s new album, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, a storm of such Southern Gothic biblical proportions that it rivals the foreboding flood that heralds the foretold birth of Elvis and his dead twin on Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ “Tupelo.” The tempest rolls in slowly … Continue reading
If I had to pick the absolute perfect song, tied up with a gun to my head, I’d be hard-pressed to come up with one better than Q Lazzarus’s “Goodbye Horses.” That sparse, sultry beat that slowly emerges as if from the clouds, combined with a strange, sci-fi keyboard do-dooing that somehow comes off as … Continue reading
I can’t be the only one who frequently fantasizes about what it must have been like to wander, either unknowingly or with a passing interest, into a Lower Manhattan club during the good-old/bad-old days of New York City and endure the sonic suckerpunch of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks with 16-year-old Lydia Lunch at the … Continue reading
The Weeknd’s Hurry Up Tomorrow features Giorgio Moroder. Those eight words alone might be enough of a gushing review, the shortest I’d ever write. Do you need to know anything else about the new album besides the presence of the pioneering heavenly father of disco who sent Donna Summer’s divine voice levitating into outer space? … Continue reading
At some point in the middle of “Tupelo” on the second night of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ two-nights-only stint in London for their Wild God Europe and UK tour, I thought Elvis Presley would rise from the dead, jumpsuit and all, to appear onstage at the cavernous O2 arena. Quite a feat given … Continue reading
Xiu Xiu is fun. I know fun isn’t likely the right word; playful is closer. Yet, I enjoy the cognitive dissonance of using the word “fun” to describe a band that has, since its aughts genesis, plumbed the depths of trauma, depravity, shame basements, and the morbid mixture of sheer abrasiveness and tightly wound near-nervous … Continue reading
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ new album Wild God opens like a kick to the head. Not exactly like Nick’s pointy-toed Chelsea boot punt to an audience member’s face as captured in The Birthday Party’s 1982 live performance of “Release the Bats” but not as far from it as one might expect for a … Continue reading
“Don’t wanna be a bossy bottom!” This line from the song “Bow Tie Eater” made me cackle during my first listen to Geneva Jacuzzi’s new album Triple Fire, released by Dais Records. It wasn’t just the reference to a power-tripping sub or the welcome shock of needy “Give me love” desire and in-heat grooves after … Continue reading