Archive for the Album Reviews Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Two Cent Review: 夢遊病者 (Sleepwalker)’s ‘РЛБ30011922’ (Skopofoboexoskelett)

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags , on 11/25/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

And the winner for this year’s most difficult-to-pronounce band name and album title belongs to … 夢遊病者 and their album РЛБ30011922. The production is raw, the experimentation unlimited and the sound just about as atonal as music can get. But sing-songy guitar passages and merciful breaks allow the listener to catch their breath and, like a good workout, push through what is ultimately a very rewarding listen that will make music fans who thrive on challenging themselves all the stronger for it. Read my full review at Treble.

Leave a comment »

Strange Passage’s ‘A Folded Sky’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags on 11/24/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

What makes Strange Passage from Somerville, Massachusetts, strange in the raddest of ways is that their take on psych-rock is tight and precise, and their songs are well considered from melody and flow to texture and tone. Read my full Treble review here.

Leave a comment »

The Bad Penny’s Top 50 Best LPs of 2025, Pt. 1: Sharon Van Etten, Spy, Turnstile, Swans, Cloakroom

Posted in Album Reviews, Lists, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , , , on 11/23/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

A lot of fucked-up up shit happened in the U.S. this year. Way, way too much of it. For many of us Americans who actually carry values in our hearts instead of bloviating about them or slapping bumper stickers on our monster trucks, it was almost too much to bear.

Fortunately, 2025 also saw the release of a staggering number of stellar records, which made the year a little more … well, bearable. Hence, for the first time ever, The Bad Penny is deviating from its usual annual tradition of limiting out favorite listens to just 10 and breaking them into a five-part series containing 10 records per installment.

What follows is the first batch.

41. Sharon Van Etten – & the Attachment Theory (Jagjaguwar)

Continue reading →

Leave a comment »

Paz Lenchantin’s ‘Triste’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags , , , , , on 11/23/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Whatever you were expecting from a solo album by A Perfect Circle and Zwan collaborator Paz Lenchantin, you won’t be prepared for what you hear when you press play. Read my full review of Lenchantin’s Triste at Veil of Sound, one of Germany’s premiere sources for alternative, experimental and heavy music, with a particular predilection for post-rock, black metal and krautrock.

Leave a comment »

10 Best Free Bandcamp Downloads #2: Rose of the World, Bimbo, Depravity, Weeping Death

Posted in Album Reviews, Interviews, Lists, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , , , on 11/20/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Strapped for cash but hungry for great music? You won’t have much luck camping out at the grocery store these days; Bandcamp is a way better destination. Here’s a rundown of 10 rad releases, about half of them newly released, that The Bad Penny recently came across on Bandcamp.

(Note: If you do have some green to spare, please show your thanks to these deserving artists and labels.)

1. Rose of the World‘s Heaven Is a Broken Heart (Sad Cactus)

It’s audacious for an NYC hipper-than-thou band to craft its first LP in the style of Sunny Day Real Estate. Those old codgers have not only come and gone but come and gone again, and then a third time. Hell, even most of their protégés have melted away at this point too. To their enormous credit, Rose of the World has pulled off a maneuver worthy of the Olympic Games with this catchy keepsake of a record. Just released on November 12, snag Heaven Is a Broken Heart before those who can make money off realize that palm-against-forehead revelation and start charging 18 bucks for it.

HEAVEN IS A BROKEN HEART by Rose of the World

Continue reading →

Leave a comment »

Snooper’s ‘Worldwide’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags , , on 11/12/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Snooper have all the support they need to be taken seriously, with Third Man Records serving as chaperone for the band and its second record, as Jack White’s label did with their first two years ago. That said, the operators of the label appear to have removed the training wheels from Snooper’s bike this time around, letting them embrace their id on the band’s second record in defiance of the dreaded-slash-silly “sophomore curse.” Read my Post-Trash review here.

Leave a comment »

Wode’s ‘Uncrossing the Keys’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags , on 11/09/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

With Uncrossing the Keys, Wode proved they wanted to make a daring pivot, at risk of alienating black-metal purists, by benching those two trademark qualities of theirs in favor of a far more eclectic listen—an objective at which they succeed handily. On Uncrossing the Keys, Wode finally makes good use of the huge asset of which they didn’t take full advantage in the past: three guitars. Rather than mostly playing in unison, this time around, vocalist M. Czerwoniuk and his fellow axemen—T. Horrocks (who also plays drums and keys) and backing vocalist D. Shaw—engage in intricate interplay for the bulk of the record. The Pittsburgh metalheads’ coal-black alchemy results in an album with more melody than all Wode’s previous albums combined. And that’s really saying something, considering that their debut was one of my favorite albums of 2016. Read my full Treble review.

Leave a comment »

Erosion’s ‘Invasive Species’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags , , , , on 11/09/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Not a second is wasted on this essential entry into the collection of every fan of heavy music who doesn’t like Disturbed and Korn. With that notion in mind, it’s no surprise that one of the most persnickety-yet-always-correct individuals in this sludgy underworld, Aaron Turner, gave Erosion his sign of approval by putting out Maximum Suffering seven years ago. Invasive Species comes courtesy of Canadian underground grindcore label Mechanized Apparatus Revolt, and boy did they luck out scoring this release. Get it here and thank us later — if your head hasn’t exploded by the time you’re done listening to it. Here’s my full Post-Trash review.

Leave a comment »

Agriculture’s ‘Spiritual Sound’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags , on 10/27/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Agriculture, the self-categorized “ecstatic black metal” outfit, returns with a second album that is called The Spiritual Sound and is just as singular and spectacular as their debut. Read my FLOOD review.

Leave a comment »

My Morning Jacket’s ‘Z (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags , on 10/21/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Remastered and padded out with 14 outtakes and demos, this reissue of My Morning Jacket’s fourth LP, Z, celebrates their breakout moment of glorious, cosmos-reaching rock music. Read my FLOOD review.

Leave a comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »