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Music News |
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Rolling Stone Album Reviews
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From the latest releases to archived favorites, here's the final
word on all the music that matters, from the editors of Rolling Stone.
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Powderfinger - Dream Days At The Hotel Existence
Artist:
Powderfinger
Review:
"I was bored listening to the same chords," Powderfinger's
Bernard Fanning sings in "Lost and Running." He doesn't mean it.
The Australian band, together since the mid-Nineties, spiritually
hails from an older intersection: mid-Eighties U2 and (no shock,
given Powderfinger's name) the fuzz-toned Seventies of Neil Young's
Crazy Horse. The best songs here do not stray far. Dirty-guitar
shriek and burnt jangle fortify Fanning's earnest romanticism in
"Head Up in the Clouds" and "Long Way to Go."...
Rating:
3 Stars
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School Of Seven Bells - Alpinisms
Artist:
School Of Seven Bells
Review:
This New York trio of ex-Secret Machines guitarist Benjamin
Curtis and twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza is the sum of hip
contradictions: om-drone modernism coated with the Dehezas' antique
vocal blur of Gentle Giant's prog-choir counterpoint and the
harmonies of a medieval Shangri-Las. The effect is warm goth
— New Order with more eros. "Chain" veers close to
electro-candy Madonna, but the Neu-like zoom and robot-nun chanting
in "Sempiternal/Amaranth" are more beguiling, like an
evening...
Rating:
3.5 Stars
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Anya Marina - Slow and Steady Seduction: Phase II
Artist:
Anya Marina
Review:
Anya Marina's childlike voice doesn't jibe with her randy album
title. But that doesn't stop the San Diego singer from growling
come-ons on "Afterparty at Jimmy's" ("You got soul onstage, boy/How
about soul in the sack?") or purring like Jessica Rabbit on the
cabaret-style "All the Same to Me." She dials it back on "Vertigo,"
a sweet ode to a dizzying dude. With blippy drum loops, it sounds
like a play date with a Casio — proof that Marina still has
G-rated fun.
Rating:
3 Stars
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Tobacco - Fucked Up Friends
Artist:
Tobacco
Review:
Tobacco's Tom Fec just made one of the year's best stoner-rock
records — only it's powered by synths, hip-hop beats and
vocoders instead of guitars. Moonlighting from his electronic
psych-rock band Black Moth Super Rainbow, Fec crafts spectacular,
Air-style instrumentals ("Pink Goo") and expertly spins reedy
Mellotrons into indelible hooks ("Hawker Boat"). Bonus points for
lyrics that get lost in pot-smoke profundity: "Honey Bunches of
Oats is the greatest cereal ever."
Rating:
3.5 Stars
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Death Cab For Cutie - Something About Airplanes (Deluxe Edition)
Artist:
Death Cab For Cutie
Review:
A strange and beautiful thing happens on this reissue's bonus
live disc. During the first song of their maiden Seattle show, in
1998, Death Cab play "Your Bruise" with the melancholy precision
that later became their hallmark. Not every cut on their debut is
that assured: Guitarist-producer Chris Walla hadn't yet mastered
the studio, and singer Ben Gibbard's articulate moodiness isn't
consistently memorable. But on the lovely, cello-adorned "Bend to
Squares," the band creeps along with deliberat...
Rating:
3.5 Stars
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Various Artists - Love Train: The Sound of Philadelphia
Artist:
Various Artists
Review:
Founded in 1971 by local R & B writer-producers Kenny Gamble
and Leon Huff, Philadelphia International Records was designed to
be a hit factory — a Motown with East Coast swagger, a Stax
with silken swing — and this four-CD history tells the tale
as they intended. Opening with a smash — the Soul Survivors'
"Expressway (To Your Heart)," a 1967 blast of psychedelic funk from
Gamble and Huff's freelance years — Love Train keeps
on giving with dozens of top R&B and pop...
Rating:
4.5 Stars
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