Album Review: Arctic Monkeys – “Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino”

Boy, were we ever wrong about Arctic Monkeys. The English quartet seemed to be pretty cut-and-dry with their 2006 debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. The loud guitars played with the speed of punk and…

Album Review: Rae Sremmurd – “SR3MM”

Why do we always want to break up rap groups? It’s like the second any upstart rap collective bursts into the mainstream, radio DJs, journalists, fans and bloggers enter into a mindset to find out who’s the star and who’s…

Album Review: Jack White – “Boarding House Reach”

RED ALERT EVERYBODY: Jack White is having his mid-life crisis. The 42-year-old pale rocker is starting to become an old man. Gone are the days of his bright red shirts shaking his flailing hair around with plastic guitars nobody’s heard…

MGMT – “Little Dark Age”: Album Review

Last year, the music world celebrated the 10-year anniversary of one of the biggest accidental success stories of the modern indie rock landscape: MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular. 2007 heard Arcade Fire get religious, Radiohead mastering its musical textures and Arctic Monkeys…

Album Review: Arcade Fire – “Everything Now”

There’s always been a sense of something bigger going on behind Arcade Fire. The Canadian alternative rock collective has felt more like a musical movement than a traditional band. They’re not about singles or torch-bearers of a particular music trend,…

Album Review: The Sadies – “Northern Passages”

Listening to Northern Passages, the fourth album from Toronto indie rockers The Sadies, you would think that you were in the 1960’s. It’s a wistful and melancholy sound that envelops you as songs whisk by in a psychedelic and indie rock…

Album Review: The xx – “I See You”

Here’s the scene: a crowded house party, well past midnight. Liquor has been flowing, maybe some illegal party favors tossed around. The lights are low and the music has faded to subtle background noise. Everyone at the party is snuggled…