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CD Reviews

Sun Kil Moon

Tiny Cities | Caldo Verde
Mark Kozelek is the rare performer in whose hands material by Kiss and John Denver sounds exactly the same.

By MIKAEL WOOD | May 25, 2006

Low Budget and Aaron LaCrate

B-More Gutta Music | Milkcrate
The B-more æsthetic is all about making tracks you can either fight or fuck to, and Low Budget and Lacrate stick that formula throughout Gutta Music.

By PATRICK BERNARD | May 23, 2006

Aloud

Leave Your Light On | Lemon Merchant
Four years and two EPs in the making, this is the coed foursome’s debut full-length.

By SUE BELL | May 23, 2006

My Dark Places | Comino
“Beautifully sloppy” was a phrase once used to describe the work of Dan Treacy, the mastermind behind Television Personalities, one of the UK’s most consistent cult bands of the past two-plus decades.

By RYAN FOLEY | May 25, 2006

Double dosed

Red Hot Chili Peppers’ two-disc epic
May has been a big month for mainstream rock, with high-profile releases by Pearl Jam, Tool, and Jack White’s Raconteurs racking up blockbuster sales and claiming pop-cultural real estate reserved more often these days for Kevlar-clad rappers.

By MIKAEL WOOD | May 28, 2006

Alchemical ascendancy

Into the heart of Tool’s darkness
Maynard James Keenan, to borrow an observation made about the young William Burroughs, has the face of a sheep-killing dog — taut, starved, bleakly symmetrical, with an underhang of menace.

By JAMES PARKER | May 17, 2006

Hamell on Trial

Songs for Parents Who Like Drugs | Righteous Babe
The sixth album recorded by the 50ish anti-folkie Ed Hamell under his Hamell on Trial moniker is recommended listening for parents who enjoy drugs, childless people who enjoy parents who enjoy drugs, and anyone else with a taste for sidesplitting songs.

By WILL SPITZ | May 17, 2006

Elefant

Black Magic Show | Kemado/Hollywood
These New York dance-rock dudes almost certainly formed a band to seduce babes.

By MIKAEL WOOD | May 17, 2006

Daniel Laurent

The Suppression | Self Made Entertainment
On his sophomore effort, local rapper Daniel Laurent bares his soul and offers good advice to young kids without sacrificing his street cred.

By MATTHEW M. BURKE | May 17, 2006

Drive-By Truckers

A Blessing and a Curse | New West
According to the liner notes, these hard-living Southern rockers recorded most of their seventh album “within hours” of writing it in the studio.

By FRANKLIN SOULTS | May 17, 2006

Various Artists: Galore Riddim

Greensleeves
Every year, there’s one dancehall riddim to beat.

By CHRIS NELSON | May 17, 2006

Secret Machines

Ten Silver Drops | Reprise
The swirling psychedelia and deep, darkly textured arrangements perfected by Secret Machines give this New-York-by-way-of-Texas band something of a British accent.

By MATT ASHARE | May 15, 2006

Various Artists: Strange Folk

Albion
Given the hypnotic arrangements and talk of fairies, the 19 tracks compiled on Strange Folk might more accurately be termed “enchanted folk” or, more skeptically, “dippy folk.”

By ANDREW MARCUS | May 08, 2006

Toby Keith

White Trash With Money | Show Dog Nashville
Let’s click off the arguments against country superstar Toby Keith.

By WERNER TRIESCHMAN | May 08, 2006

Calexico

Garden Ruin | Quarter Stick
Joey Burns and John Convertino celebrate 10 years together as Calexico on Garden Ruin by embracing the Southwestern twang that’s always come so naturally to them and also by leaving it in the dust.

By JED GOTTLIEB | May 08, 2006

Sunset Rubdown

Shut Up I Am Dreaming | Absolutely Kosher
Shut Up is unabashed and far-reaching, a thousand parts sweated down to four players and one harrowing Robert Smith karaoke voice, occasionally too synth-proggy but always high stakes.

By NICK SYLVESTER | May 08, 2006

Gomez

How We Operate | ATO
“This is what I use to make myself more attractive to girls,” Gomez singer Tom Gray joked from the stage at New York’s Hiro Ballroom a few weeks ago, fingering a plastic melodica.

By MIKAEL WOOD | May 08, 2006

Pretty Girls Make Graves

Elan Vital | Matador
Is it even possible that this is the same Seattle band who so nicely put a little twist on the Lookout! Records’ pop-punk formula when they debuted way back in ’02 with a woman up front?

By MATT ASHARE | May 08, 2006

APB

Something to Believe In | Young American
Thanks largely to a massive revival in everything post-punk, the neo-new-wave resurgence, and the timely appearance of Simon Reynolds’s Rip It Up and Start Again , anything from the ’80s is fair game for vault diggers — even Scottish pop.

By RYAN FOLEY | May 01, 2006