Somehow manages to make Lil Wayne’s Rebirth look like a Mensa grant-worthy idea. A rapper who plays guitar like he has no fingers decides to record a rock album (okay, we have Lil Wayne’s Rebirth at this point), so he takes a bunch of LSD and plays Nirvana’s Nevermind until the album and his mind utterly […]

If I disengage to the extent that Zachary has, this is lovely. DIIV are more or less to dream pop/post-punk what Real Estate are to jangle pop.  Lots of pretty tones and atmosphere masking weak songwriting, a lack of new ideas, and an inability to present old ideas in a way that is interesting or fun. I can appreciate […]

Back when I was Coog Radio’s music director, the first band I ever set up a premiere for was a group who went by Sexy Girls from Amherst, Massachusetts.  A year and a half passes, I’m doing this, and Sexy Girls are now Spirit Ghost, a band an awful lot like Sexy Girls, but with […]

If this is Victory, let’s all hope DJ Khaled doesn’t record Defeat and cause the universe to cave in on itself. Guest “artists” run the gamut from T-Pain, Usher, Soulja Boy, Boosie Badazz, and Pitbull, among others.  If I have to explain to you why this isn’t a positive, this probably isn’t where you belong. […]

Brock Winthrop’s debut EP Pity Upon a Hill is something that would probably piss me off if you wrote down all the separate components on paper.  Brock’s got a nasally whine of a voice, giving me Miniature Tigers flashbacks, his lyrics are comically wordy, and it features Moog synths, the bane of all sound.  So […]

I have this crazy idea that if Meghan Trainor’s music and all it represents were erased from the planet’s collective consciousness, actual feminism and mainstream society’s acceptance of it would leap frog at least 15 years into the future. (Click here to see rating) Are you fucking kidding me?:   FUCKING STOP:  

clipping.’s most recent EP, Wriggle, is a mixed bag.  The title track is far and away the best song here, making excellent use of sampling of Whitehouse’s “Wriggle Like a Fucking Eel” and moving at a blistering pace, like clipping.’s take on Outkast’s “B.O.B.” for power electronics nerds.  Amazing track. “Shooter” has cool production, with […]

For those who don’t already know, Johnny Otis Dávila is probably best known for his work on guitar in the now defunct Dávila 666, probably the biggest band in Puerto Rican garage rock the past decade.  Since Dávila 666, Johnny’s been part of Terror Amor (still playing with AJ), and now we have this, where Johnny takes front […]

The album’s called Junk.  And it’s junk.  Get it?  GET IT?! “a love child of crystal castles and neon Indian imo…” – lux bledstone “This band is all about experimentation. If you can’t appreciate new things, then you’re not a fan of the roots of M83. I’ll always love you guys” – TBFilms For people who […]

So this is a “pop soul” album.  Two problems with that. First, not a single song has any “pop”.  They’re all atrociously written, both in song structure and lyrics (“Let’s Marvin Gaye and get it on“), and the production is more depressing than reading the obituaries. Secondly, Charlie Puth has as much soul as a bowl […]

LUMPS’ Curses! LP starts off with 3, count ’em, 3 catchy, relatively straightforward power pop punk tracks in “No Sweat”, “Spirit Sweat”, and “Sleep Tight”.  Up until track 4, the vibe I was getting from this was that I was in store for a really great set of pop punk tunes that featured some interesting guitar to distinguish […]

Let me preface this review by saying this is a compilation of two EPs into an LP.  The first EP was released in 2014, while the second was released this year.  I’m reviewing them as one release because this is the first time both of them have been released on physical format (cassette on King […]

The last of the It’s Trash! releases I’ll be covering (for now), we have Terminal Licks’ self-titled EP. This record is very reminiscent of the kinetically driven, fast and loose style of power pop that the Exploding Hearts did a little over ten years ago with Guitar Romantic.  These guys are less bratty and a […]

Pop punk is kinda a weird thing.  It’s a genre aimed primarily at young people, but the only stuff that doesn’t get shit on in critical circles is stone-faced, serious, grown adult shit and the rest gets mocked as dumb Warped Tour bands.  And yeah, most of the goofy pop punk these days sucks.  That’s […]

Flesh Rag’s recent Stay Away EP is an improvement over their It Ain’t Enough EP.  There’s less variety here as far as styles go, but overall this is higher in energy than their last 7″ and while the band is good at the slower weary garage rockers, they’re much more suited to go down this route […]

You think you know brazz?  You don’t know nothin’, bruster.  This is some of the brizziest brazz you’ll ever feast your ear eyes on, ya dingus.  Why are his hands black and his face white?  Because black people are better at fingering and white people are better at blowing, and Miles is the ultimate brazz […]

Another It’s Trash! 7″, this time we’ve got Flesh Rag’s It Ain’t Enough. Flesh Rag covers quite a bit of garage rock ground with these 3 songs.  “It Ain’t Enough” is a scummy stomper of a track with great guttural vocals and a slow burning build in intensity accentuated by the speed picking during the […]

AS ONE OF THE WHITEST PEOPLE ON PLANET EARTH WHO JUST WISHES THEY COULD HANG OUT WITH REALLY COOL BLACK PEOPLE WITHOUT MAKING AN EMBARRASSING ASS OUT OF THEMSELVES, I REALLY IDENTIFY WITH PAUL HERE. I WANNA BE THE LION KING TOO, PAUL.  I WANNA BE THE LION KING TOO. YES I KNOW THIS CAME […]

WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU?  D-BEAT IS BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER. I stumbled upon this record and thought it might be an amusing little novelty due to the band name inspired by Issei Sagawa, our favorite Japanese murderer/cannibal, and instead I got SWALLOWED THE FUCK WHOLE. This is hardcore punk at its most […]

I first heard the Gooch Palms (what a band name) back in 2013 with their debut LP Novo’s.  Novo’s was a good garage rock album in its own right, and then last year, the band released their “Trackside Daze”/”Sleep Disorder” 7″.  That single hinted at real progression from an already more than solid start, and I’m happy […]

We all invariably have that one Facebook friend.  The guy we hung out with in high school.  He was part of your group, but he often found himself squeezed out of your conversations.  He was awkward, but a nice guy.  No shame in calling him friend.  Eventually you graduated and the bond there wasn’t enough […]

If you’ve heard of Those Pretty Wrongs, you almost definitely already know that it’s Jody Stephens’ new project.  Jody was the drummer of legendary ’70s power pop band Big Star, and if you don’t know Big Star, you know That ’70s Show?  Yeah, the opening theme song is a bad cover of one of their […]

Do you remember Wacky Races?  You know, that crazy ass cartoon where every episode was a race with a bunch of crazy ass people/creatures in crazy ass cars trying to take each other out (in kid-friendly ways, of course).  You know Superjail?  That crazy ass cartoon where every episode the crazy ass Warden concocts some […]

“I wanna be the Steve Albini of dumb party music.  I wanna be totally pretentious about unpretentious shit.  “Man, check out this dumb party band, they’re the most dumb party.”  “Fuck that band, those guys are poseurs, they aren’t truly dumb party.”  Yeah, that’d be sick.” – me, a while back Toronto’s PKEW PKEW PKEW […]

How much analysis does an album called Fuckbird Barnacle demand?  I doubt Super FM would want me to over analyze this.  The album cover is a cartoon style drawing with a naked man with a soft, shitty body (much like mine) staring in a mirror with a dripping crystal formation on it.  I don’t know […]

I generally like to joke about how the UK indie rock scene is a bland pastiche of douchey dance-punk and lame copycat bands that can’t manage to put their own spin on a sound, or even worse, pervert those sounds (every time I think about Fat White Family and how they’ve achieved greater success than […]