Dinosaur Jr.: Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not
This emotive new LP is not just another Dinosaur Jr. record.
Matthew Fiander
Descendents: Hypercaffium Spazzinate
The Descendents today sound a lot like the Descendents you've always known, but this album is hardly a self-conscious clinging to past success. Instead, it's the sound of four guys with a deep bond, making music on their own terms.
Estrangers – “Croc Rock” (audio) (premiere)
"Croc Rock", the new single from North Carolina's Estrangers, isn't afraid to murk up and complicate the band's shimmering pop sensibilities.
Connections: Midnight Run
After the taut Into Sixes, the more fractured Midnight Run risks upsetting the formula the band has established, and yet that risk pays off at every turn.
Rhyton: Redshift
Redshift is an impressive and lasting record because it manages something not all experimental music can pull off. It is both immediate and challenging, catchy and complex.
The Amazing: Ambulance
Ambulance finds the Amazing pushing forward, trying new angles, and adding moments of clarity and sparseness to their trademark bittersweet gauze.
Martha: Blisters in the Pit of My Heart
Blisters in the Pit of My Heart is an impressive record and a thoughtful ode to art as both expression and refuge.
Various Artists: Venezuela 70: Cosmic Visions of a Latin American Earth
Venezuela thrived culturally and economically in the '70s, and this compilation reveals the fresh and exciting experimental rock scene at a time when rock music in that country was finding its own sound.
Count Ossie and the Rasta Family: Man From Higher Heights
1983's Man From Higher Heights is an interesting chapter in the story of Count Ossie, but it succeeds in adding to that larger story more than it does as a stand-alone album.
Rhys Chatham: Pythagorean Dream
Despite Chatham's history of working with hundreds of musicians for a single project, the complex and curious Pythagorean Dream is all about Chatham and his guitar.
White Lung: Paradise
On Paradise, the change is not just one of production and fidelity. It's also one of attitude and perspective, and when this album runs at full throttle, it heads down some lesser-traveled roads through rock music.