Handsome Furs – Sound Kapital
Opener “When I Get Back” has Boeckner returning to his native land a changed man, for better or for worse, as Perry’s left hand punches out deep grooves and her right hits an almost bubbly synth melody. “Memories of the Future” sees Boeckner disparaging the nostalgia that, arguably, drives this entire project and its wanderlust—“I throw my hands to the sky / I let my memories go.” The track proves that he and Perry can turn a forward-looking outlook into just as much of a jam as a backward-looking one. “Serve the People” could be an indictment of Russian oligarchs and American corporatists alike, and it will get fists in the air in both countries. Early single “What About Us” turns the record’s most club-ready and retro banger into a New Order-esque heart-on-sleeve coda, with Boeckner singing, “Let’s stay in this evil little world / Break my heart” over and over again to somehow comforting, ethereal results. Read the full review on Pop Matters

Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
More than any single Fucked Up record, David Comes to Life is thick with walls of noisy melody. It’s hard to get a handle on just how many guitar tracks are on a given song, and Shane Stoneback deserves a medal for mixing the sheer bulk of the sound into something so clear. But for all the shoegazey textures and blistering sonic assault, David Comes to Life is also direct and immediate. Hooks are piled on top of hooks, bursting through torrents of spacey noise (“I Was There”) and peppy rhythms (“The Recursive Girl”) alike. At points, the primal appeal of the blunt and effective riffing even brings to mind the bar-band rock of the Hold Steady. Read the full Review

Brian Eno & Rick Holland – Drums Between The Bells
A track on Drums Between The Bells like “cloud 4”, with Eno’s multilayered voice modulating between intonation and generous song to deliver gently optimistic, contemplative lyrics over legato organ lines and softly arpeggiated synths, finds itself speaking to Another Day on Earth and the semi-titular track “Just Another Day.” This cluster itself speaks to the instrumental (I dare not say ‘voiceless’) meditations “The Big Ship,” “Sombre Reptiles,” and “Another Green World” that nestle at the center of 1975’s Another Green World. It’s a testament to his maturity and prescience that Eno can maintain a conversation with his past achievements, giving an impression of a sustained meditation on an eclectic bundle of decades-long vibrating strings, and that he remains as happy creating “three-dimensional instantiations” of poetry as he is setting poetry to music, and finding time between to promulgate as many permutations as can be mustered or set in motion. Read the full review