Grizzly Bear – Shields
Delicate beauty and refined presentation still rule on the Brooklyn mainstay’s fourth album, Shields, but the balance is subtly shifting. On 2009’s Veckatimest, and especially on signature single “Two Weeks,” the band made an important transition: from sketches to songs, from impressionism to realism, from ghosts to creatures. On Shields, the creatures are back, this time with teeth.

Read the full Review on AV Club

Dinosaur Jr. – I Bet on Sky
With 2007′s Beyond, Dinosaur Jr. delivered a fresh-sounding record of original material that not only avoided re-covering past accomplishments but was also considered by many to be a logical follow-up to Bug, Dinosaur Jr.’s final album with Barlow. 2009′s Farm laid to rest any doubts that Beyond was a fluke and further cemented the idea that perhaps it is possible for a band to have more than one life. With I Bet on Sky, the group has nothing more to prove to themselves or their audience, which allows them to avoid worrying about whether or not the songs could be played live (as on Beyond and Farm) and instead lets Mascis do “what [he] felt would sound good.”

Read the full review on Consequence of Sound

Band of Horses – Mirage Rock
Mirage Rock is a little rougher around the edges, a little less pristine than the band’s recent stuff, cutting out the piles of overdubs and miles of reverb that kept the still-beautiful Infinite Arms from having an immediate, visceral impact. You can feel that primal, first-take energy in Bridwell’s strained harmonies on “Everything’s Gonna Be Undone” or in the pummeling, bled-together drive of the anthemic rocker “Feud.”

Read the full review on Paste

Bob Dylan – Tempest
“Tempest” is more concerned with the scraps of the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s, as Dylan continues to explore the various strands of early American roots music that he internalized as he matured, sticking to basic instrumentation: guitar, drums, bass, violin, banjo and the occasional accordion. You can hear a touch of Charlie Christian guitar in the opening bars of “Duquesne Whistle,” suggesting an old 78-rpm record; Hank Williams’ sorrow sneaks in, as does Dylan’s long fascination with string bands of the 1920s, such as the Mississippi Sheiks. Read the full review on Pop & Hiss

Avett Brothers – The Carpenter
The Avett Brothers are obsessed with death. As easy as it is to forget the looming scythe of the Grim Reaper amid the band’s frequent talk of romance, conflicting morals, and endless barrage of “Pretty Girl” songs (here, we get the infectious doo-wop of “Pretty Girl From Michigan”), it’s always there, hanging in plain sight. And on The Carpenter, their seventh studio album, they speak about the topic more plainly than ever, as if inviting that curved blade to come slicing down through the air at any moment. Read the full review on Consequence of Sound

Amanda Palmer + Grand Theft Orchestra – Theatre is Evil
Thematically, Theatre is Evil treads the fairly well known ground of personal isolation and failings in relationships of all kinds. Where this album triumphs is the power of the hooks and choruses, thanks to the new pop aesthetic. Tracks like “The Killing Type” build on a fairly simple melody until the chorus comes in with highly distorted bass and a hollering call and response. It’s the kind of urgent pleading that used to be carried solely by Palmer’s voice but is now given full form with additional instrumentation and backup vocals. Punk News

Animal Collective – Centipede Hz

Centipede Hz’s lead single “Today’s Supernatural” brings this further into focus. Powered along by a ’70s organ sound (the first indication of what I am certain are direct prog-rock influences on all things), the song’s breakdown actually takes place in its first chorus, reversing the expectations of the structure. Like the opener, it is disorienting and layered with a near-absurd amount of detail, but repeated listens reveal a strong melody at the song’s core. As overstuffed with ideas as the album is, its best moments seem deceptively simple once the penny drops. Read the full review on LA Music Blog

Cat Power – Sun

As George Harrison might have said, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter for Cat Power’s Chan Marshall. The tumultuous musician has dealt with more than her fair share bad press, bad habits, and bad relationships over the past decade. But when she sings, “here comes the sun,” on the title track of her ninth album, Marshall emerges from a long hibernation, casting off the unadulterated guitar parts of her earlier catalogue for a rejuvenating new sound. Beat-friendly (thanks to Beastie Boys’ mixer, Philippe Zdar) and production-heavy (thanks to herself), Sun is Marshall’s most evolved work. With a little light and a new perspective, Chan Marshall reveals yet another beautiful way she maneuvers in the dark. Read the full review on Consequence of Sound

Two Door Cinema Club – Beacon

Where Tourist History’s every song was overflowing with hyper energy, Beacon takes the time to slow down. Tracks like the opener, “New Year,” still sport the band’s cheery tone, but have a new element of sweetness. “If you think of me, I will think of you,” sings Alex Trimble shyly. On “Sun,” he is suddenly soft and uncertain. “Ocean blue, what have I done to you?” he begins, leading into the album’s slowest track. The tone of each song is often steady, but not always the same in its approach; Trimble isn’t afraid to play with his words. In “Wake Up,” he stretches his words until each syllable collapses into the next. Every breath feels confident and controlled. Read the full review on Paste Magazine

Redd Kross – Researching the Blues


Redd Kross have returned. A short history lesson: in ’81 they were snotty punks (Born Innocent), by ‘87 they were flower punks (Neurotica), and they became glam-rock power-poppers when the ‘90s hit (Third Eye/Phaseshifter). Brothers Jeff and Steven McDonald have been the band’s only permanent members, but the Neurotica lineup has reunited for Researching the Blues, the quartet’s first album in 15 years.

If there’s a consistent thread that runs through Redd Kross’ many phases, it’s their propensity for bubblegum hooks and harmonized “oohs” and “ahhs.” This pop sensibility is bolstered by hard rock glitz, as Redd Kross crank their amps and stomp on pedals. The band evokes a louder version of the Beatles (not to mention Jeff McDonald’s voice sounds exactly like John Lennon’s). Read the full review on Consequence of Sound

Shovels & Rope – O’ Be Joyful


The chemistry of Shovels & Rope is what makes them shine. The sincerity of the music, and their ability to seamlessly blend vocals allows them to ascend beyond their otherwise humble setup and skill sets. Cary Ann even says it in the opening track “Birmingham” which also acts as their de facto introduction and theme song: “Played Springwater, Station Inn. Couldn’t play fast, couldn’t fit in.” What she can do though is sing in high register with that Loretta coal-grit in the back of her throat and awaken something deep and familiar in the music, especially when Michael Trent joins in on harmony. Read the full review on Saving Country Music

Purity Ring – Shrines
Since those early singles all mined such similar sounds, it was an open question how Purity Ring might mix things up over the course of an 11-song, 38-minute full-length. But Shrines is not about range, instead offering subtly different versions of a single, near-perfect idea. You might think of the album as a sculpture, and each track offers a different vantage point. “Ungirthed” is how you see it head on; “Fineshrine” is what it looks like from a low angle, with a bit of shadow from the overhang providing an extra touch of darkness; “Crawlersout”, with its sharper percussive edges and extra portion of ghosted vocals, is the view from 90 degrees to the left; and then “Grandloves”, with unwelcome guest vocals from Isaac Emmanuel of Young Magic, is like having a guy standing between you and the work, and he won’t stop talking on his cell. Read the full review on Pitchfork

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Mumford and Sons – Big Easy Express DVD
In the opening scene of Big Easy Express, Jade Castrinos, singer for folk troubadours Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, is seen frolicking between train cars. The setting is last spring’s Railroad Revival Tour, a multi-day jaunt that found Castrinos’ band, Mumford & Sons and Old Crow Medicine Show traveling by a 14-car train from Oakland to New Orleans, playing six concerts along the way. Read the full review on Rolling Stone

Passion Pit – Gossamer
Gossamer, Passion Pit’s second full-length release, comes nearly three years after the band’s debut album, Manners, which itself dropped almost a year after Angelakos’ Valentine’s Day demos caught the attention of music blogs and major labels in 2008. The gestation period, long by today’s publish-or-perish standards, belies a record that wasn’t easy for Angelakos to make. It’s not the easiest to listen to, either. Dark topics and production difficulties slam against Passion Pit’s glittery sound to create an album that, while peppered with catchy melodies, is overstuffed and under-edited. Gossamer is a tortured beast, disguised in a crunchy candy shell. Read the full review on Pretty Much Amazing

Jeff The Brotherhood – Hypnotic Nights
Just over a year after dropping We Are the Champions, Nashville duo JEFF the Brotherhood try out their new deal with corporate behemoth Warner, delivering Hypnotic Nights (not to be confused with last month’s Hypnotic Knights EP, all four songs of which appear here). Despite the heavy-hitting financial backing, the brothers don’t really bother to switch anything up ― any of these tracks could have appeared on either of their last two albums. But while the basic premise is the same ― singer/guitarist Jake Orrall’s lackadaisical vocals are featured overtop some of the best punk, garage and psychedelic rock tracks going. Read the full review on Exclaim

Old Crow Medicine Show – Carry Me Back
However, in contrast to previous album, 2008’s Tennessee Pusher, a thrilling, rabble-rousing record about drug users, hustlers and the disaffected, Carry Me Back has a more down-home feel to it.

It moves from a gentle, toe-tapping porch song mood on tracks like the pleading and twangy Ain’t It Enough and Genevieve, which has an emotional bite to it with lines like “your love like fire and your heart like a guillotine”, to a thigh-slapping jaunt on the lovely fiddle-driven ditty Levi. Read the full review on NZ Herald

Baroness – Yellow & Green
Rather than settle into a specific signature, Baroness, and in particular frontman and guitarist John Baizley, has chosen to expand the palette through, in many cases, simplification. This is a more direct record than “Red” or “Blue”. Baizley has added more melody, more hooks, without surrendering the foundation he started the band with.

“Take My Bones Away” helps the listener transform from the fractal edginess of “Blue” to the warmer tones of “Yellow & Green”. Call it a hinge song, if you will. The fuzziness and grunge root remains, but the metallic weight is tempered by maturation. This sets us up for the anthemic feel of “March to the Sea” which flows into “Little Things”. Read the full review on Examiner

Dirty Projectors – Swing Lo Magellan
Culled from a batch of roughly 40 demos, these tunes explore vulnerability and vexation, sweetness and cynicism with more manageable musical complications than ever before. For instance, the gorgeous “Impregnable Question” finds the seam between Heart of Gold-era Neil Young and late-1960s Serge Gainsbourg; it’s a love song between Coffman and Longstreth, her coos helping him to soften his voice above a warm acoustic shuffle. Over handclaps and a ragged, wrapping riff on “Dance for You”, Longstreth offers one of his most intuitive and immediate hooks. There’s gusto and playfulness here, too, from the way Longstreth clears his very-warped throat before launching into the first verse of opener “Offspring Are Blank” to the brilliant decision to record Coffman and Dekle mocking some of Longstreth’s most impenetrable lyrics toward the end of the irrepressible “Unto Caesar”. When he sings “Down the line/ Dead, the martyrs’ morbid poetry,” Coffman teasingly answers, “Uhh, that doesn’t make any sense, what you just said.” You want to be in the room with this band. Read the full review on Pitchfork

Aesop Rock – Skelethon
Once Rock opens his mouth on Skelethon there’s nary a respite until the wrinkled-nose voice of anti-folkie Kimya Dawson breaks the album in half, over the tersely beautiful intro to “Crows 1.” It’s as if Rock had been hemorrhaging rhymes, having stored words for so long. The gracious beats also deserve credit for balancing the forbidding noise familiar from his Def Jux years. On “Racing Stripes,” an acid-jazz intro gives way to hallway-echoing drumrolls, while the gamelan-tinted vibraphone that cradles “Fryerstarter” is almost sexy. There’s never been blown-speaker boom-bap like “Tetra” on an Aesop Rock album before; and the occasional finished thought, like “This is why we can’t have nice things” or “When I see your picture I draw dicks on it,” helps keep him earthbound. Read the full review on AV Club

Gojira – L’Enfant Sauvage
“L’Enfant Sauvage” begins quite plainly as a celebration of the traits that the band have worked hard to single out as their own over the last decade – exaggerated harmonics, dynamic pick scrapes, nuanced drumming behind sledgehammer riffs. The guitars are crisp but swing low when required, often distinguished more by their pick attack or palm muting than melody or rhythm. It can make for repetitive listening, but once in the right frame of mind the small changes from song to song, from one kind of groovy riff to another, are easier to appreciate. The bouncing title track and aptly-titled “Explosia” may be similar in some regards but will take on different character when they inevitably take their place on Gojira’s live setlist. Read the full review on Ultimate Guitar

Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do.
This is the most distilled Fiona Apple album yet. While her celebrated previous work was marked by eclectic musical flourishes courtesy of producers including Jon Brion and Mike Elizondo, The Idler Wheel is fearlessly austere in comparison. She worked with touring drummer Charley Drayton on the album, and his touches are light and incisive. Speaking of the record’s signature clattering percussion– including thigh slaps, truck stomps, and “pillow,” according to the credits– Apple associated the homemade sounds with an increased freedom: “I just like that feeling of: ‘I’m in charge, I can do whatever I want.'” And this musique concrète approach is not random. Every single waveform is pierced with purpose, from the muted heartbeat thumping through “Valentine” to the childlike plinks popping around the uncharacteristically optimistic “Anything We Want” to the chugging factory sounds that give “Jonathan” its uneasy rhythm. Read the full review on Pitchfork

Liars – WIXIW
For this album, Liars holed up in a studio under the 101 freeway in L.A. and learned how to produce electronic music. The space has no windows and is situated in a forgotten area of the city, where the glitz of L.A turns to grime and decay. This environment shaped the contours of WIXIW. It is an album about sequestering yourself and digging deep inside your own head. Beginning with opening track “The Exact Color of Doubt” it’s clear that, sonically speaking, this theme translates into an expansive yet intensely intimate sound. Sweeping, dreamlike synths circle around sparse percussion and Andrews’ voice (something like an unpolished Thom Yorke) meanders aimlessly. It’s a song fit to be played during a nighttime scuba diving excursion. In fact, most of the record feels deeply associated with water. Specifically, being alone and deep, surrounded on all sides by pressure and the unknown, looking up at one guiding light on the surface. Read the full review on Pretty Much Amazing

Smashing Pumpkins – Oceania
This is the album that needed to surface back in 2007. With Zeitgeist, Corgan lost himself amidst a complicated jigsaw puzzle that was always destined to lay unfinished on the dining room table, namely because he kept looking for the missing pieces in other boxes. It didn’t help that the only support he received was himself and producer Roy Thomas Baker, whose sensationalized, glossy production made everything feel as real as a Hasbro action figure. On Oceania, however, Corgan exerts a different kind of authority, one that’s level-headed enough to go somewhere, and with people behind him. The songs actually feel like songs and not tracks digitally titled “Smashing Pumpkins anthem.” But why? Read the full review on Consequence of Sound

Hot Chip – In Our Heads
Over the years, Hot Chip retained their sense of humor, largely in the visual sense (funhouse torture devices, boy bands getting attacked by laser beams), but something not-so-funny also started to take place: As they perfected a savvy alchemy of dance and modern pop, their music became more serious. Amidst the big, beating heaters, dancefloor deconstructions, and “Simpsons”-soundtracking anthems, there emerged sincere ruminations on love, protection, and the pleasure that one derives from simply experiencing life, all of which were fully realized on 2010’s excellent One Life Stand. The band’s most concise and uniformly gorgeous album to date, One Life Stand also represented Hot Chip’s most clear-eyed material yet, suggesting that the group was, somewhat soberly, growing up. Read the Full Review on Pitchfork

Rush – Clockwork Angels
“Clockwork Angels” has 12 tracks and is approximately one hour and six minutes long – a respectable length considering we are talking about a band that is simultaneously considered one of the best classic rock and progressive rock bands still active today. While I’ve read online that Alex Lifeson strongly denies that “Clockwork Angels” is a concept album it does come across like a concept album to me, and it seems it also does to novelist Kevin J. Anderson (a friend of Neil Peart), who has stated that he will be writing a sci fi novelization of the album. I’m certain this will be an interesting novel, with Kevin J. Anderson describing the plot as follows: “In a young man’s quest to follow his dreams, he is caught between the grandiose forces of order and chaos. He travels across a lavish and colorful world of steampunk and alchemy, with lost cities, pirates, anarchists, exotic carnivals, and a rigid Watchmaker who imposes precision on every aspect of daily life.” Read the full review on Absolute Guitar

Tallest Man on Earth – There’s No Leaving Now
Matsson functions differently. He’s more autonomous — secluded somewhere in his home country of Sweden with each album consisting of little more than his nasal drawl, dextrous finger picking on an acoustic guitar, and sparse accompaniment. Compared to Dylan’s eight LP’s, Matsson now has three, bolstered by two strong EPs of hyper-consistent songwriting. On There’s No Leaving Now, Matsson lolls on down the same path he’s been a-walkin’, careless of the destination or the speed of life around him. The sound is more dampened than his previous recordings, even though it sometimes features more studio arrangements than any of his previous works, almost (but not quite) making good use of an eight-track recorder. Read the full review on Consequence of Sound