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Pure Bathing Culture – Moon TidesPartisan Records -out Aug. 202.5 / 5 It’s dream-pop the duo from Portland, OR makes here, and some of it ain’t that bad. It’s just that, that’s all we get. The beats feel unspectacular, the vocals are good but certainly not great, and the music on the whole doesn’t explore any new territory. From the point of view of “does this add something new to my collection,” Moon Tides is a disappointment. Take “Pendulum,” the lead single/opener from PBC’s debut full-length, and it’s got a great 80’s sway to it (in addition to a great chorus). But that’s roughly theRead More →

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Typhoon – “White Lighter”Roll Call Records-out Aug. 20 5 / 5 This is it; we’re calling it. The eleven-piece from Portland, OR get it right, gets it all right. Typhoon’s debut full-length, White Lighter is nothing less than a epic journey through love and death and everything in between: it is brilliant, truly brilliant, dynamic, engrossing. It is rock tuned to an orchestral feel, with horns, violins, everything they can muster in almost a dozen musicians; it is rock that doesn’t hold back, that goes on a journey with every song; it is rock in its highest form, vast, personal, operatic and yet humble. ItRead More →

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Dessa – Parts of SpeechDoomtree Records-out now 4 / 5 We don’t often cover rap, but we’ll make an exception for this intelligent Minnesotan. Citing Greek mythology on her previous release, Castor, The Twin, Dessa makes full use of her Philosophy major in her music, paying special attention to lyricism and individual words. What she has on her third full-length, then, is more than just an intellectual discourse: there are real beats, real songs, and real grooves. Dessa shuns the crass “b**ches and hoes” rap for meaningful stories about ordinary people, if you couldn’t tell by our description, and more power that it works soRead More →

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Fluffer – “Skopsi”Self-Released-out now 3 / 5 Bloomington, IN psychedelic rock trio Fluffer make a supreme effort here on their debut full-length. They’ve got their songs down, set up the drum set, and get rolling right into the thick of rock; they pound through almost a dozen, but despite their energy, we have trouble finding them compelling. They’ve written them well enough (see the rumbling, tumbling “Relic”), and they’re spot-on with their instruments, but the songs here largely don’t click with us. Compulsion is that element that takes a shrieking weird vocal and turns it into AC/DC classics, and we think that’s the weakest pointRead More →