Halfway through Bottle It In, Kurt Vile’s newest album, he covers country veteran Charlie Rich’s “Rollin With The Flow.”
Album Reviews
Cher’s ‘Dancing Queen’ divides fans
As if her lacklustre performance in this summer’s Mamma Mia 2! Here We Go Again, wasn’t enough, Cher has released an album of ABBA covers. The A&E team is here to deliver the verdict: Does Dancing Queen redeem the Goddess of Pop? Does the diva do justice to her ‘70s-disco Swedish[Read More…]
High as Hope reveals a grown-up Florence
Eccentric, electric, and extraordinary, Florence Welch and her devoted Machine defied conventions with their June 29 release of High as Hope. The band’s fourth album reveals a seasoned, contemplative Welch who explains her past traumas in music for the first time. Florence + The Machine’s first three albums, Lungs, Ceremonials,[Read More…]
The Now Now marks the end of an era
The Now Now dropped on June 29, a little over a year after the 2017 release of Humanz—a genre-defying, guest star-studded smorgasbord of an album. The Now Now features only three musical cameos, choosing instead to privilege Damon Albarn’s voice, revealing an interiority previously unexplored on Gorillaz albums. In “Fire Flies,”[Read More…]
Snail Mail’s glowing tribute to adolescence
Teenagers often spend their formative years in a state of emotional limbo; no longer children, but not quite adults. From this place, wonderfully moving art has been produced. At the age of 19, Baltimore native Lindsey Jordan has managed to emerge as a potential threat to songwriters everywhere as Snail[Read More…]
Album Review: Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s ‘Sex & Food’
When Unknown Mortal Orchestra first appeared with a standalone online single in 2010, the identity of its creator was unknown, and an air of mystery surrounded the song. It featured an uncanny, lo-fi voice singing strange words over a psychedelic guitar riff, and a weird title, “Ffunny Ffriends.” Since then,[Read More…]
Reanimating the corpse of trap music
There was a time, not too long ago, when it seemed that Lil Yachty was the future. He looked and sounded like a radically new type of rapper, happiest when crooning over samples of cartoon theme songs, his bars lighthearted and youthful. He entered the mainstream with his 2016 mixtape[Read More…]
Album review: Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) – Car Seat Headrest
Before 2016’s brilliant Teens of Denial cemented his status as one of contemporary music’s most fascinating figures, Will Toledo spent years recording songs on his personal computer, uploading new records on Bandcamp under his Car Seat Headrest moniker at a frequency matched only by Lil B. For his 11th record, the[Read More…]
Album Review: Belle and Sebastian – How To Solve Our Human Problems (Part 3)
Scottish indie darlings Belle and Sebastian have returned with a musical gift for the new year: Since December, the Glasgow six-piece band has released an EP every month, culminating with the final release of How To Solve Our Human Problems (Part 3) on Feb. 16. While the EP shares its name[Read More…]
Reputation is an intimate examination of life and love
In her newest album, Reputation, Taylor Swift bids goodbye to the days of “riding shotgun with her hair undone.” Swift’s sixth studio album, is a self-aware examination of life away from the spotlight. For most of the year before Reputation’s release, Swift spent her time off of social media and[Read More…]
