For all the creative genius and artistic adrenaline that TV on the Radio injected into their finely crafted records, what Tunde Adebimpe reveals on his solo debut, Thee Black Boltz, is that his abilities are similarly magnificent when fully realized on his own terms. Read my full, lengthy review on Treble.
As DragonForce blazed the trail for power-metal geeks who like video games, so have TEKE::TEKE embarked upon coaching fans of psych-rock to embrace game-inspired music. Heavy use of pentatonic scales create a whimsical ambiance from start to finish—apt for a video game—and TEKE::TEKE lend a narrative quality that plays out in a similar way to that of a cinematic role-playing adventure. In other words, non-gamers shouldn’t fear being alienated by this unusual project. Read my FLOOD review here.
Portland’s Blackwater Holylight stay true to their gloomy outlook on this EP, but the listening experience is far more pleasant thanks to a crisper, cleaner sound. Read my short review on Treble.
Impressively, it took just two records for what began as a two-person project to achieve its potential as a towering ensemble. Read my brief review of Tribunal’s In Penitence and Ruin on Treble.
After a 10-year gap between full-lengths, Pennsylvania rock band Superheaven improved their talents so greatly that their new self-titled record stands as a masterstroke. Read my short review on Treble.
The deceptively named Adapting // Crawling harnesses and re-presents the blistering, bombastic, no-holds-barred essence of Iron Lung that established the band—and gave their self-operated record label legitimacy—in the first place. Go to Treble to read my short review of Iron Lung’s killer new record.
If you’re not at least tempted to dance along to every song on this record, produced by M. Ward masquerading as a pre-notorious Phil Spector, you’d best get your feet, ears and head checked. Read my short review Valerie June’s Owls, Omens, and Oracles (Concord) for Treble here.
Don’t call Tapeworms more “mature”; call them more well-versed in—and more adept at—the priceless art of playfulness. Read my short review of their new album, Grand Voyage (Music Website), on Treble.
Shellac’s At Action Park was the consummately contrarian, anti-establishment record of the 1990s that didn’t belong in a record store’s hardcore bin. In many ways, the masterwork by Steve Albini, Bob Weston and Todd Trainer was the antithesis of every rock record that had come before it—a Paul Bunyan-size middle finger to the corporate machine regarded at the time as the enemy. Read my lengthy review of one of my favorite records ever for Treble, which inducted it into their Hall of Fame.
Ever walk into a coffee shop and discover that four pigs are standing motionless behind the counter, holding pitchers half-full with milk, as patrons mindlessly guzzle it down by the glassful and a lonely guy sits by himself at a table, looking dejected and singing to himself? Apparently, Pyramids have (and David Lynch probably did too, RIP). That’s the visual that accompanies the melancholic, haunting electro-pop-rock precursor to the third album by the experimental Texas quintet:
They’re supposedly cutting that sound with black metal and God knows what else on the upcoming Pythagoras, but this song doesn’t back up that claim. It does, however, lay an unsettling groundwork for what’s to come.
The Bad Penny (beta) 