Flying Lotus – Until The Quiet Comes

In the last five years, Flying Lotus has become a standard-bearer for 21st-century beat construction by looking forward and backward simultaneously and making music that feels like an exploration. So what happens when such an artist reaches a cul-de-sac? After Flying Lotus’ 2010 landmark Cosmogramma, further density was not an option. That album was packed so tightly with rhythms, instruments, and textures that adding more to the mix would have meant risking identity; just a few more samples could have turned the music into an indistinct mush that contains every color at once. Cosmogramma felt like an end game, and the new Flying Lotus album, Until the Quiet Comes, finds Ellison lighting out in a new direction. He’s thinking in terms of air, mood, and simplicity. In an interview with the UK magazine The Wire, Ellison described Quiet as his attempt at “a children’s record, a record for kids to dream to.” While there’s nothing cute or naive on the album, you get a sense of what Ellison might mean when it comes to dreaming. Read the full review on Pitchfork

The Tragically Hip – Now for Plan A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tYTgzwybNQ
Radio’s not likely to get the word out, however, so it will likely fall to Gord Downie et al. getting behind the material on Now For Plan A onstage during the months ahead to worm this fine collection of tunes into the popular consciousness.

These tunes deserve to find a place in there, too. Now For Plan A — captured mostly live off the floor by producer Gavin Brown (Metric, Billy Talent, Sarah Harmer) — doesn’t carry quite the same thrill of the new that We Are the Same did, but it’s fiercely played, more nuanced than it will be given credit for being and well stocked with songs that establish themselves as familiar friends with disarming quickness. Read the full review on The Toronto Star

Witchcraft – Legend

The band was originally started as a tribute to Pentagram, and they certainly wear their influence on their sleeve. Vocalist Magnus Pelander sounds almost like a dead ringer for the mighty Bobby Liebling, and the band still displays a flawless mix of doom and oldschool psychedelia. But the first thing you’ll notice upon pressing [PLAY] on Legend is that it’s way heavier than anything they’ve ever done before. The classic cuts from their old LPs certainly rocked with a uniquely tube-driven sound, but Legend just has this incredible punch to it in the production that really brings out the heaviness inherent in every riff. Read the full review on Metal Blast