FullReviews Index
The Flaming Lips 'Embryonic'
For most, the double album is a place to harness one’s conceptual
ideas. For Wayne Coyne, it's a chance to deliberately lose the
plot.
Clues 'Clues'
Alden Penner's post-Unicorns outfit debuts with an album of dense, dark, distorted, '90s-ish alt-rock.
Fool's Gold 'Fool's Gold'
This Los Angeles-born Afro-Islamic-Hebrew jam-band is the music world's digitized global village made manifest.
Michael Hurley 'Ida con Snock'
The latest LP for the progenitor of the New Weird America is familiar Hurley: simultaneously wacky and touching.
Kings of Convenience 'Declaration of Dependence'
After five years apart, Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe are back on record together, writing a love-letter to each other.
Devendra Banhart 'What Will We Be'
Unlike recent Banhart records, here the ambling, genre-dabbling, pastichey feel isn't a product of lazy happenstance, but written into the album's ambition.
Built to Spill 'There is No Enemy'
Doug Martsch and co sound like there’s nothing they’d rather be doing than making this record.
Dead Man's Bones 'Dead Man's Bones'
Clearly the greatest nightmare-doo-wop-with-children's-choir soundtrack to an imagined monster movie recorded by a Hollywood celebrity ever.
Megapuss 'Surfing'
The debut disc for Devendra Banhart's side-project is an in-joke made public.
Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions 'Through the Devil Softly'
Where the Mazzy Star starlet's every whisper is as tangible yet elusive as the breeze.
Vetiver 'Tight Knit'
'Tight Knit' plays like the musical equivalent of building a model aeroplane: precious and painstaking.
Why? 'Eskimo Snow'
The master of the lyrical overshare, Yoni Wolf views the world as his "lit confessional marquee."
The Big Pink 'A Brief History of Love'
In 2009, the emperor’s new clothes come in a hot new shade of Big Pink.
Gossip 'Music for Men'
Gossip's major-label debut sounds somewhere between stilted and self-conscious.
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band 'Outer South'
If 'Conor Oberst' gave off the wafting aroma of a sausage party, 'Outer South' positively reeks of it.
Julian Plenti 'Julian Plenti is... Skyscraper'
From Garth Brooks as Chris Gaines to Beyoncé Knowles as Sasha Fierce, the musical alter-ego has a long and pitiful history.
Discovery 'LP'
Vampire Weekend + Ra Ra Riot + Copious Amounts of Auto-Tune = Discovery.
Ra Ra Riot 'The Rhumb Line'
The first LP-proper from these pals-of-Vampire-Weekend shows a band begging for brighter lights and bigger stages.
Dirty Projectors 'Bitte Orca'
After years of toiling in the shadows of obscurity, Dirty Projectors' time to shine is now.
Vampire Weekend 'Vampire Weekend'
Vampire Weekend's hype-starting debut disc is one of the biggest alternative albums in aeons. But is it worthy of all the acclaim?
God Help the Girl 'God Help the Girl'
The soundtrack to Stuart Murdoch's imagined musical doesn't measure up to a Belle and Sebastian album.
Yo La Tengo 'Popular Songs'
For their 14th-ish album, Yo La Tengo return to the 'variety show' format of 'I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One.'
Parenthetical Girls 'Entanglements'
The Portland outfit's latest longplayer marries jaunty orchestrations with lyrical grotesqueries, unexpectedly making for one of 2008's best discs.
Bat for Lashes 'Two Suns'
Natasha Khan's second Bat for Lashes record mixes its metaphors for duality.
Handsome Furs 'Face Control'
HF have authored an album as Russian travelogue, journeying deep into the dark heart of the neo-Soviet-Union.