New Orleans singer-songwriter Lilli Lewis gets into storyteller mode on her new album Americana, skipping through an assortment of musical styles that bridge folk, rock, and R&B with ease. Of course, you might have missed it had you gone looking for the album on Spotify last week — due to …
Read More »The War on Drugs' 'I Don't Live Here Anymore' is Pure Bob Dylan Fan-Fiction
There are too many Bob Dylan references to count in “I Don’t Live Here Anymore,” the latest arena-ready single from the War on Drugs. Some are lyrical nods to beloved songs like “Shelter From The Storm,” “It Ain’t Me Babe,” and “Standing in the Doorway.” Others are even more on-the-nose, …
Read More »Song You Need to Know: Erika de Casier, 'Drama'
There’s seduction in nostalgia. It teases the prospect of the impossible; making an old experience new again. Singer Erika de Casier, whose near-whispering croon has been compared to the likes of Sade, knows the power of memories. Her new single “Drama” feels like a recording from a time capsule in …
Read More »Song You Need to Know: Anjimile Owns Up to a Bad Romance on Sizzling 'Baby No More'
Writing a song about a fading romance is never easy. Writing a song about a fading romance where you bear the brunt of the blame is even harder. Writing a song about a fading romance where you bear the brunt of the blame, but the song still simmers with the …
Read More »Ovrkast. Makes Not Trying Sound Immensely Gratifying
Contrary to popular belief, rappers try very hard. The idea that they don’t is based on a clichéd facade, full of claims that a song “only took 15 minutes to make,” or that an artist “doesn’t write anything down.” In fact, even mustering the energy and wherewithal to enter a …
Read More »Song You Need to Know: Sports Team, 'Fishing'
Sports Team are a great six-piece English rock band who formed when they were students at Cambridge. The crisp, jagged tunes on their debut LP, Deep Down Happy, recall Franz Ferdinand or the early Arctic Monkeys; their weird-angled guitars can evoke Pavement or Silkworm; their clever critiques of British life …
Read More »Song You Need to Know: Napalm Death, 'Logic Ravaged by Brute Force'
Napalm Death will always be best known as the band that, in the mid-to-late Eighties, united the aggression of hardcore with the darkness of metal, sped the whole thing up to outrageous tempos, and topped it off with the catchy moniker of grindcore. And more than three decades after landmark …
Read More »Rex Orange County's '10/10′ Is an Ode to Earnestness
Sincerity — or at least having the ability to show it — is often a casualty of age. There’s a certain heartfelt quality that tends to get dulled under the weight of merely having to exist, day after excruciating day. Rex Orange County should know this feeling, but on his …
Read More »Song You Need to Know: Miley Cyrus/Ashley O, 'On a Roll'
Thirty years ago, no one would have expected that Nine Inch Nails’ foreboding industrial dance rock would be at the nexus of Top 40 pop conversations. Yet, in 2019, Trent Reznor is everywhere he may have never wanted to be: you can hear the 2008 instrumental track “34 Ghosts IV” …
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