Last Shadow Puppets, Age Of The Understatement
Turner and Kane shake off all those blatant copyists and stay at least three steps ahead of any competition. Wonderful?
Anya Marina - Slow & Steady Seduction: Phase II
Artist: Anya Marina Review: Anya Marina's childlike voice doesn't jibe with her randy album title. But that doesn't stop the San Diego singer from growling come-ons on "Afterparty at Jimmy's" ("You got soul onstage, boy/How about soul in the sack?") or purring like Jessica Rabbit on the cabaret-style "All the Same to Me." She dials it back on "Vertigo," a sweet ode to a dizzying dude. With blippy drum loops, it sounds like a play date with a Casio — proof that Marina still has G-rated fun. Rating: 3 Stars
Three 6 Mafia - Last 2 Walk
Artist: Three 6 Mafia Review: It's getting easier out there for a pimp. On their first album since they added an Oscar statuette to the gold-plated goblets in their trophy case, these Memphis rappers are in a triumphant mood. "I showed 'em, I showed 'em," bellow DJ Paul and Juicy J in "I Told 'Em." On Last 2 Walk, every track is compelling, with synthesized strings and the usual depth-sounder bass lines inflated with reverb into miniature symphonies. Recently, MCs Crunchy Black and Lord Infamous quit Three 6, leaving the... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst
Artist: Conor Oberst Review: On last year's "Cassadaga," Conor Oberst left his home in New York to wander the country's byways. On his latest album, recorded in Mexico, the Omaha, Nebraska, native is still drifting, having ditched both his Bright Eyes moniker and longtime producer Mike Mogis. A rough-hewn, death-haunted travelogue, this set proves that while you can run from home, you can't run from yourself. And sometimes that's OK. Largely, this is the introspective folk rock of Bright Eyes, though there's some welcome... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Lindsey Buckingham - Gift of Screws
Artist: Lindsey Buckingham Review: On this album's opener, "Great Day," there's an electric-guitar solo so blowtorch-hot, it seems specifically designed to bitch-slap anyone with the nerve to wonder if Lindsey Buckingham still rocks. Buckingham's 2006 comeback, Under the Skin, was largely a reflective, parlor-room affair, full of self-doubt and dazzling acoustic playing, and here, the mood is still darkly introspective: "Suicide days, suicide, suicide nights/In the wheelchair almost blind," he sings on "Wait for You." But the... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Silver Jews, Lookout Mountain Lookout Sea
Perhaps it's enough to say that this is the best album to come out of Tennessee this year; indeed possibly the world.
The Doors - Live at the Matrix
Artist: The Doors Review: The Doors were still a club band in the late winter and spring of 1967 — not yet stars, not quite spectacle, reliant on blues and R&B covers to get through a whole evening on the bandstand. Stuck in a long limbo between the January release of their debut album, The Doors, and the summertime explosion of their second single, "Light My Fire," the group played discothèques in Los Angeles and New York and, during a legendary engagement that March, more than a dozen sets over five nights... Rating: 4 Stars
The Replacements - Let It Be (Deluxe Version)
Artist: The Replacements Review: "Label wants a hit/and we don't give a shit!" Replacements frontman Paul Westerberg once sang. Yet the real miracle of his legendarily self-destructive band is that it created masterful pop in spite of itself. Success wrested heroically from seemingly inescapable failure: that was the Replacements' magic, as the recent reissue of their first four releases reaffirms. It still seems impossible that the most indelible of the four, 1984's Let It Be, came from these booze-crazed gutter punks.... Rating: 4 Stars
Jacaszek
Zajęcie się muzyką stanowiło w jego życiu nagły zwrot - od dzieciństwa kierował się w stronę plastycznych działań, czego zwieńczeniem było ukończenie studiów na Wydziale Konserwacji Zabytków Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu....
Living Colour
Czwórka czarnoskórych Amerykanów nigdy nie okupowała pierwszych miejsc list przebojów. Nie sprzedali porażającej liczby albumów. Mimo to są grupą kultową, mają sporą grupę oddanych fanów....
Motley Crue - Saints Of Los Angeles
Artist: Motley Crue Review: All the filth and fury of their Eighties heyday, finally funneled into an album Mötley Cüe have created a cottage industry out of rehashing their excesses: Their tales of debauchery have already fueled dozens of books and a standard-bearing episode of Behind the Music. Now they've woven those stories into their first album in eight years. Inspired by their 2001 sleazeography, The Dirt, Saints of Los Angeles finds Vince Neil flashing back to the band's golden age: gigging on the... Rating: 3 Stars
Supergrass, Diamond Hoo Ha
Another jewel in the guitar pop dung heap ? good work fellas.
Toots and the Maytals, Light Your Light
Toots' voice sounds just as captivating as it did in the 60s.
Tricky - Knowle West Boy
Artist: Tricky Review: 2008 is shaping up as the Year Bristol Bounced Back. Earlier this year, the city's trip-hop lords Portishead released the superb album Third. Now comes the first record in five years from Tricky, who helped codify the foreboding Bristol sound along with Portishead and Massive Attack in the mid-Nineties. Tricky's hometown is much on his mind: The album title refers to the hardscrabble hood where he grew up, and he has called the album a homage to the Brit pop of his youth. You can hear the... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Feist scoops up 1,2,3,4,5 Canadian music awards (Reuters)
Reuters - Feist dominated Canada's music
awards on Sunday, scooping up five Junos for a year in which
the singer-songwriter shot to international stardom when Apple
Inc. used her single "1234" in iPod TV ads.
Guillemots, Red
Red is a frustrating record; for every moment of brilliance you find yourself tearing your hair out at their deliberate obtuesness.
O.A.R. - All Sides
Artist: O.A.R. Review: Like fellow jam bands Phish and Dispatch, O.A.R. have built an impressive fan base by touring incessantly and encouraging fans to trade bootlegs of their shows. That strategy has helped them sell over 1.4 million records and score headlining gigs at Madison Square Garden, and on their sixth album, they've cultivated a slick pop sound to match their arena-size ambitions. Produced by Matt Wallace (Maroon 5), All Sides features glossy modern-rock songs that range from sweeping ballads ("One Day,"... Rating: 2 Stars
Republika
Historia zespołu przerwana w połowie drogi przez śmierć wokalisty, bez którego nie byłoby grupy. Jednak właśnie to smutne wydarzenie podkreśliło mocno legendę zespołu zbudowaną m.in. jednym z występów na festiwalu w Jarocinie....
A.C. Newman - Get Guilty
Artist: A.C. Newman Review: Between his solo output and his work with the New Pornographers, Carl Newman has turned out five records in six years — pretty prolific for a guy who seems to spend loads of time crafting his songs. Newman's second solo album shuffles between power pop and mild psychedelia while tossing in horns and coed harmonies. Get Guilty isn't quite as consistent as a typical Pornographers record, but the arrangements are lusher. And like all Newman records, it shows off his smarts and maintains a... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Pop star and partner show British art (AP)
AP - A bit of Britain has arrived in Texas, thanks to English pop star George Michael and his Texan partner Kenny Goss.
Kings Of Caramel
Trzon zespołu Kings Of Caramel tworzą Bogusław Szarmach (bas) oraz znany z ostatniej edycji Ścianki, a przede wszystkim z Kristen - Michał Biela (tu jako gitarzysta, wokalista i autor tekstów). ...