The 14 songs featured on Columbus, Ohio, native Winston Hightower’s second album, 100 Acre Wood, may be as short as the ones on its lo-fi predecessor, but they’re far more fleshed out with catchier and on-point rock music. Read my FLOOD review here.
Archive for the Album Reviews Category
Winston Hightower’s ‘100 Acre Wood’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Winston Hightower on 05/12/2026 by Kurt OrzeckFailure’s ‘Location Lost’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Failure, Ken Andrews on 05/04/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Failure’s fourth post-reunion LP avoids trends in favor of songs that penetrate the heart—it’s as if the spacey grunge trio have finally found the magic they’ve had in themselves from the start. Read my FLOOD review.
A Place to Bury Strangers’ ‘Rare and Deadly’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags a place to bury strangers on 04/09/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
It’s futile to source the origins of each song contained on Rare and Deadly, a collection of songs by A Place to Bury Strangers. Some are demos, some are B-sides, and others are incomplete tunes and sketches of songs that were never realized. What’s more important is that Rare and Deadly—unlike haphazardly assembled comps that are often released to fulfill an artist’s contractual obligation—captures the spirit of A Place to Bury Strangers in a way that is ingenious as the band itself. Read my full review on Treble.
Witch Ripper’s ‘Through the Hourglass’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Magnetic Eye, Witch Ripper on 04/07/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Witch Ripper’s kindred spirits – Mastodon, High on Fire and Baroness, to name a few – have done quite well for themselves thanks in part to keeping their creative juices flowing at practically all times. But by taking a slow-cooker approach instead, Seattle’s Witch Ripper have deftly avoided pitfalls like getting overexposed or even overplayed, and they’ve instead siphoned that time into developing a coherent and well-considered sound. Look no further than their new album, Through the Hourglass, which comes out Friday via Magnetic Eye Records. Read my full review via Veil of Sound.
Filth Is Eternal’s ‘Impossible World’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Filth Is Eternl on 04/07/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Vibrant, dexterous, and unrelentingly compelling, Seattle hardcore-punks Filth Is Eternal demonstrate on their newest album, Impossible World, that they’ve matured into a band adept at writing songs just two minutes in length. Read my full review courtesy of FLOOD.
José González’s ‘Against the Dying of the Light’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags José González, Junip on 04/06/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
With his fifth album, Swedish songwriter José González considers his deepest of existential queries while maintaining the effervescent, seductive sound that’s the strongest through line in his career. Read my full review courtesy of FLOOD.
Gaupa’s ‘Fyr’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags GAUPA on 03/03/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Gaupa’s Fyr is a masterwork of an EP that aims impossibly high and yet achieves a stratospheric stature rare for a short-player. Now, that may seem antithetical that it’s more difficult to craft an EP, given that they tend to be about half as long as their counterparts. Authors face a similar conundrum: can anyone who avidly reads literature claim with a straight face that there are more perfect short stories than there are novels? Of course not, and any argument to the contrary is effectively a denial of an objective truth. Read my full review of Gaupa’s Fyr on Veil of Sound.
Mirah’s ‘Dedication’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Calvin Johnson, K, K Records, Microphones, Mirah, Phil Elverum on 03/03/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Gently playful with a fire burning underneath, singer/songwriter Mirah’s first record in seven years signifies her devotion to the craft of making music, whether the light in her career is burning bright or dim. Read my full review on FLOOD.
Remember Sports’ ‘The Refrigerator’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Remember Sports on 03/02/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Astute listeners, after hearing the entirety of this Remember Sports album, will realize they just heard 12 songs with 12 choruses; and that they weren’t subjected to anger, fear or really any ill feeling on The Refrigerator—just joy, thoughtfulness, happiness and reflection. Read my full review via Treble.
Cat Power’s ‘Redux (The Greatest 20th Anniversary)’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Cat Power, Chan Marshall on 03/02/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Cat Power is the real deal, and she’s achieved what every artist should aspire to: letting their work speak for itself. Of course, Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall) isn’t the only artist playing in a league of artists who eschew placating the masses in favor of staying true to themselves, but what makes Cat Power so irresistibly charming is her lyrics, musicianship, live performances, and the cleverness that she lets linger below the surface. Redux (The Greatest 20th Anniversary) proves that theory to be correct. Read my full review of the compilation courteously of Post-Trash.
The Bad Penny (beta) 