*** Fourth album. "Songs cover everything from their preferred cleaning solution to a throwback to their debut album with 'Gay Bar Part Two'. Unclassifiable, this group blends sounds and influences from glam, funk, rock, disco, punk, new wave, and metal."
GANG GANG DANCE Saint Dymphna CD
*** "GANG GANG DANCE continue to push the musical envelope with Saint Dymphna, the first proper studio follow up to the bands 2005's critically acclaimed 'God's Money'. Tempering the finer elements of pop, dance, ambient and experimental music; Saint Dymphna is both the bands most challenging and forward thinking release to date."
JARBOE Mahakali CD
*** "MAHAKALI is a typically forbidding document, this time a song cycle based on the Hindu goddess of destruction, Kali. Jarboe and her collaborators incorporate extended feedback drones, industrial disco beats, elements of Scandinavian-style death metal, and passages of unexpected delicacy into this 15-track set."
KMD Bl ck B st rds CD
*** RE-ISSUED! Finally! MF DOOM's old group gets proper re-release treatment on Doom's label. Long unavailable.
MF DOOM Operation Doomsday CD
*** "The metal-faced villain returns! MF DOOM (aka ZEV LOVE X from KMD) continues to turn out the goodness originally released on the Fondle 'Em label. A double-album of experimental and abstract underground hip hop for the headz. Features guest action from CUCUMBER SLICE, TOMMY GUNN, KURIOUS and more. Classic and essential."
BENOIT PIOULARD Temper CD
*** RECOMMENDED "With soft-edged vocals and a broad palette of instruments that lately includes harmonium and cello, Benoit Pioulard constructs diverse arrangements that skirt the borders of pop with beautiful, detailed atmospheres. It is no coincidence that the word 'temper' has more than 20 definitions related to basic existential aspects like emotion, behavior, and music; it offers many dimensions but also reveals how scrawny language can be in its attempt to name the abstract. On Temper, Pioulard endeavors to make sense of things in a tumultuous time, inspired by everything from medieval astrology to the poems of T.S. Eliot and the films of the Italian neo-realists. Fully aware of the mission's vanity, he is nevertheless consumed by its path."
OF MONTREAL Skeletal Lamping CD
*** "OF MONTREAL's critical breakthrough, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, catapulted the band to the upper echelon of indie stardom. Skeletal Lamping absolutely delivers. It's a complicated and dense thrill ride packed with slinky grooves that demand a physical response. It's unpredictable, completely unique, and epic."
THE SEA AND CAKE Car Alarm LP / CD
*** Eighth album. "Bracing, like the surge of wasabe on sweet sushi, like the slap of cool water on a diving body, like the head-rush of a rollercoaster just leaving summit. Think of the great working bands, the Charles Mingus Quintet, the John Coltrane Quartet, the Meters or the Minutemen. For them, there was no gaping chasm between the studio and the road; the studio was just another stop, a gig, a continuous part of the flow of playing and working and creating together." Huh. I imagine it's great! Tis the Sea and Cake after all.
