If Archive 2003 – 2006 is at times a runaway mess, it’s consistently a beautiful one.
At its core, Expo 86 is the work of a great band seemingly disinterested in its own existence.
The album is the work of an artist whose unique voice can’t flourish without dissimilar, energetic counterparts.
The album falls somewhere between the murky waters of M83’s current shoegaze-glazed pop and Billy Corgan’s overly tweaked The Future Embrace sound.
The Electric Factory is perhaps the perfect venue for an artist like Jónsi.
Brooklyn quintet the National has found a balance on their fifth album, High Violet.
The album is cool by way of its out-of-touch bravado, and, in too-brief moments, graced by a tongue-in-cheek bittersweetness.
The album is a mildly interesting listen, but proves to be nothing less than a regression into ennui-drenched acid folk mimicry.
The album remains deceptively complex, no matter its stream-of-consciousness flow and sparse instrumentation.
Alberta Cross has left the humble crudity of their self-produced EP for a conventional electric polish.
Beat the Devil’s Tattoo isn’t some heady exercise in rock transcendence or romanticism.
Like jj n°2 before it, n°3 strikes a balance between the blasé and the magical, matching facetious.
To say that Rogue Wave’s Permalight is a two-faced record is critical understatement at its finest.
The Swedish quintet are rarely masters of producer Phil Ek’s approach.
This is is Yeasayer’s wonderfully freakish, plagiarism-as-flattery bow to the nerdy altar of ’80s synth-rock.
Transference is sparser than Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, but it’s no less melancholic.
Of the Blue Colour of the Sky is OK Go’s unequivocal stab at lusty, dirty soul.
Vampire Weekend’s Contra grounds the band’s heady sound in a world-weary sentimentality.
This is anthemic art rock, a sound that boldly rings like a cross between Linkin Park’s grungy emo-pop and U2’s brand of commercial rock.
Fall be Kind is more of the same, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing but for the change in tone.