Back in the days when I was a teenagerBefore I had status and before I had a pagerYou could find the Abstract listenin’ to hip-hopMy pops used to say, it reminded him of BebopI said, “Well, Daddy, don’t you know that things go in cycles?Way that Bobby Brown is just…
Karnivool are not just a blog favourite, but a personal one too – comfortably sitting within my top five favourite bands of all time. For someone who routinely listens to hundreds of different records a year top five is a big deal. Surprisingly, for a band that inspires such love…
This has been a notable year for veteran artists dropping excellent albums with barely any notice. Fiona Apple pushed up the release of her boldest album yet, X brought the band back together for their first album in 27 years, and now Hum have returned after a couple decades to…
As a reviewer, some of the most entertaining bands to cover have an eclectic list of apparent influences. It’s fun to flex my rolodex of bands and genres to describe an artist’s sound. More importantly, they tend to produce some of the most unique, creative music in their respective genre(s).…
Will we see the day when Art As Catharsis releases a dud? So far, the evidence suggests a resounding, “No.” The label has released music from every corner of the Australian underground, and each of their artists and releases approaches their respective genre with a progressive mindset. I’m stoked to…
Music teaches us many lessons but the lesson which possibly resounds the hardest is that nothing good can last. We watch celebrated careers wither away into money-grabbing husks on a yearly basis. The music lives on but the people who made it, mortals all, die and fade away. Entire genres…
Among the small pleasures of listening to music, it’s satisfying when an album title perfectly encapsulates the narrative played out in the track list. Such is the case with Lesoir’s fifth album Mosaic, a collage of art rock and prog highlighted by a theatrical delivery and themes of mystic whimsy.…
I’ve had the pleasure of seeing I Was Awake twice to date. The first time was with Appalaches, Deer Leap and West Meets Wess at an ultra-dive basement bar in Boston that misspelled the former band as “Apple Ashes” on their show flyer, and featured an often-sleeping sound guy sporting…
Surely everyone who has ever picked up a guitar, microphone, or drumstick has fantasised about creating an album revered as a bona fide, epoch-defining classic. The dream of having a collection of songs that are still spoken about in hushed, reverent tones more than two decades after their release is…
We might as well address the elephant in the room right off the bat, as urban dictionary culture has opened an unfortunate path for readers’ minds to travel down during recent years. Long before the acronym THOT brought a cruder insinuation to the table, a Belgian band came together around…
