James Blackshaw – The Glass Bead Game

The transfer at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue from the 6 train to the N or W is delightfully multi-cultural. And as rush hour bodies ebb, it becomes a poly-ethnic stew of shoving, heaving jerks.
Now, I can get pushed all damn day long and not go anywhere, as the majority of my fellow passengers are [...]

Balmorhea – All Is Wild, All Is Silent

This collection of folksy post-rock is something of a paint-by-numbers affair, but well-crafted and engaging enough as a background soundtrack that its more obvious faults can be overlooked. All Is Wild, All Is Silent isn’t a terrible album, but it does put one mind of a distillation of ideas rather than something more fresh. Much [...]

Antony & The Johnsons – The Crying Light

Antony has a tear-strained voice that will forever overwhelm anything the rest of his ensemble may do. That’s the nature of vocal-driven music. Even the minor instrumental patters here and there on The Crying Light never actually go beyond setting the stage for the next reappearance of his pained, absurdist melodrama.
Some might complain this is [...]

Dreadfully Obvious Classics #1 – I See A Darkness

I see that look upon your face. The one that says “Why not review a perfect snowflake? Why not review your first love?”
Because, Mr./Mrs./Ms. Smarty Pants, snowflakes melt and my first love was a painfully earnest exercise in learning how not to be a complete shit all of the time, and mostly failing at that.
Hence [...]

Blut Aus Nord – The Work Which Transforms God

These French folk remind me a bit of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, in that it is a weird thing filled with much bluster and shouting. Theatrics for the sake of something greater, I guess. I like SGM’s male vocals quite a bit, even if I only listen to “A Hymn to the Morning Star” on repeat.
But [...]