After metal’s materialist excesses of the ‘80s, a backlash in the form of “folk metal” emerged the following decade. Agalloch’s The Mantle was its apex, epitomizing metal musicians’ retreat to forests and reconnections with nature.
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Agalloch’s ‘The Mantle’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Agalloch on 10/15/2026 by Kurt OrzeckNick Drake’s ‘Five Leaves Left’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Nick Drake on 10/15/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Nick Drake’s debut album Five Leaves Left is as close to a synesthetic experience as music can offer. Each of the 10 gentle songs acts as the soundtrack to a leaf falling off a tree and swaying back and forth as it descends to the ground.
Continue readingChat Pile’s ‘Who Loves the Sun’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Chat Pile on 10/12/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
In the strongest sign yet that the quixotic quartet known as Chat Pile are neither to be underestimated nor to be considered a band that’s only willing to strike the iron while it’s hot, they have delivered Who Loves the Sun. While that news no doubt titillated fans, many of us wondered, “Yes, but do they have anything left to say?” The answer, of course, is an unmitigated yes.
Continue readingMitski’s ‘Nothing’s About to Happen to Me’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Mitski on 10/11/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Mitski reins in her sometimes thudding humor, fuses the musical sophistication of her previous album with the mutant pop genius of Be the Cowboy and delivers easily the best album of her career. The songs on Nothing’s About to Happen to Me sear the heart, with the loose narrative of a woman losing herself preparing beautiful dramatic scenes of the storms of the inner heart in the midst of seemingly-mundane common life.
Continue readingCloakroom’s ‘Time Well’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Cloakroom on 10/10/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
With 2017’s Time Well — gorgeously spacious, at times heavy and with a dose of folk at its roots — Cloakroom redefined how trust develops between the artist and the audience.
Continue readingInter Arma’s ‘Paradise Gallows’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Inter Arma on 10/09/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Paradise Gallows, the third album by Inter Arma, saw the band aiming their post-metal cannon for the sky, letting loose upon unwitting metalheads a darkly ominous record with a huge sense of scale and blend of extreme genres that only Isis had successfully pulled off prior.
Continue readingGiraffe’s ‘Towering Inferno With Bongo Drums’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Giraffe, psychedelic music, psychedelic rock on 10/09/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
With nary a word spoken over the course of its 11 songs, on paper (sans the title), Giraffe’s Towering Inferno With Bongo Drums would seem to be for the jazz or jam-band set: It was recorded in one day after the four players had developed familiarity with each other by performing improv sets in their hometown of L.A. And while the bulk of instruments are ones you would spy in a jazz nightclub—12-string guitar, fretless bass, drums and the like—it’s the other tools that propel Giraffe’s debut record into the far reaches of outer space: electronics, a Clavinet, an electric sitar and samples galore.
Continue readingPhoto Gallery: Mastodon and Deafheaven Level Boise at Adrenaline-Sapping, Ear-Splitting Show
Posted in Album Reviews, News, Reviews with tags Baroness, Bill Kelliher, Brann Dailor, Deafheaven, George Clarke, Mastodon, Troy Sanders on 10/08/2026 by Kurt OrzeckMastodon and Deafheaven let it riff in Garden City, Idaho, last night – a stone’s throw away from Boise, with the two metal bands at the topic of their game and finally touring on the same bill.
Here are some the images from the action-packed concert:
Spacemoth’s ‘Inward Eye’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Spacemoth on 10/07/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
By and large, Spacemoth’s Inward Eye is an autobiographical affair that multi-faceted artist Maryam Qudus created in tandem with digitally archiving her family’s home movies using a VCR that she left running repeatedly in her abode. While that might drive just about anyone nuts, Qudus exhibits no signs of erratic behavior on Inward Eye, a chill record in the vein of late-career Flaming Lips.
Continue readingGreen Lung’s ‘Necropolitan’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Green Lung on 10/07/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Whereas most artists put blood, sweat and tears into ensuring that their records bear a consistent sound, theme, story line—or all three—Green Lung torched that handbook well before creating Necropolitan. If you thought Black Sabbath threw curveballs with “Changes,” “FX” and “Laguna Sunrise” on Vol. 4, you’ll be agog by what’s in store when you listen to Green Lung’s fourth album for the first time.
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