Houston “dirtgaze” trio Shallowater ruminate on our intolerable times with some of the quietest and slowest music—as well as the most deafening, distortion-filled cacophony—you’ll hear in 2025. Read my FLOOD review.
Archive for the Album Reviews Category
Shallowater’s ‘God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Shallowater on 09/22/2025 by Kurt OrzeckPharaoh Overlord’s ‘Louhi’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Pharaoh Overlord on 09/11/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Consisting of two 19-minute-plus songs that lumber, stomp, and trudge along from start to finish, Pharaoh Overlord’s Louhi is one of those rare records that makes you reflect, “How did someone come up with the idea to make music like this?” Check out my review of the record on Post-Trash.
Ganser’s ‘Animal Hospital’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Ganser on 09/09/2025 by Kurt OrzeckGanser’s Alicia Gaines (bass, vocals) Brian Cundiff (drums) and Sophie Sputnik (vocals, synth, guitar) tap into the artistic wisdom they’ve cultivated together for a decade – not gimmickry, not for a damn minute – to come up with sinister, seductive sounds that serve as the audio equivalent of a red light district or an opium den: irresistible, illicit temptations that even the strongest-willed among us aren’t strong enough to resist. Read my full review on Spectrum Culture.
Ivy’s ‘Traces of You’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Adam Schlesinger, Ivy on 09/08/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Completing songs written during sessions with late bandmate Adam Schlesinger, this collection hearkens back to the airy spirit that made Ivy such a delight at a time when it was hip to be hopeless. Read my full review on FLOOD.
Jobber’s ‘Jobber to the Stars’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Jobber, pro wrestling, WWE on 09/03/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
With its 11 catchy grunge-pop tunes each referencing pro-wrestling culture, Brooklyn band Jobber’s full-length debut, Jobber to the Stars, prioritizes fun in its escapist return to the slacker-rock charm of the ’90s. Read my FLOOD review here.
Cass McCombs’ ‘Interior Live Oak’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Cass McCombs on 09/02/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Reaching the pinnacle of his songwriting acuity, the vignettes Cass McCombs paints with his voice and guitar on his 13th album, Interior Live Oak, evoke a conversation between Thoreau and Nick Cave. Read my full review on FLOOD.
Slow Crush’s ‘Thirst’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags shoegaze, Slow Crush on 08/29/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Slow Crush present the noisiest and more mature version of themselves yet on Thirst, which arrives today. The Belgian shoegazers’ third record takes the form of a hopeful manifesto that the human race still has the opportunity to reinvent itself. Read my full review on FLOOD.
Led Zeppelin’s ‘Live EP’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Led Zeppelin on 08/22/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Archival Led Zeppelin material almost always boils down to semantics, and this collection of four songs is the ultimate case in point. Read my full review on Music Connection.
Slake’s ‘Let’s Get Married’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Slake on 08/21/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Slake’s Centrifugal force Mary Claire proves on their debut that they are an outlier. The musician also makes the very convincing points that the power of love is much, much stronger than statistical data; far more precious than the way we carelessly bandy about the word in our degraded and thus devalued lexicon. Read my full review at Post-Trash.
Mawiza’s ‘ÜL’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Mawiza on 08/11/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Mawiza, an indigenous metal/folk group born and bred in sacred Mapuche Nation lands in Chile, is more than just a band, despite their compelling and unique sound. In fact, the posse even have a mission statement: “to preserve ancestral roots, rescue indigenous moral values and to promote biodiversity conservation, guided by the indigenous worldview and struggle.” Perhaps that’s a mouthful, but it’s fitting for a band whose deafening groove metal is an earful. And with their third record, ÜL, the quartet are on the right track, drawing recognition and even popularity at a rapid clip.
Read my full ÜL review on Treble, Mawiza’s harrowing account of the heinous human rights abuses that the Chilean government wrought upon the Mapuche Nation, and the band’s exclusive comments to The Bad Penny about their recent collaboration with Gojira on a song about the environmental crisis that far too many of us continue to ignore.
The Bad Penny (beta) 