_CD Reviews 2014 (Page 3)

Simone Felice – StrangersDualtone Music Group -out now3.5 / 5 Make no mistake: we are very biased toward Simone Felice. If you caught us in 2009 with The Duke and the King’s Nothing Gold Can Stay, then you’d understand. Personally, we consider that album a classic. Already. So if we come off over-appreciative of Felice’s post-Duke output, well, there’s a good reason for it. But let us say that his latest solo album, Strangers, gets there, but not much else. Alas. There are fantastic songs. Notably, the anthemic “Our Lady of the Gun” and “Running Through My Head.” Felice is a master at two things:Read More →

Glass Animals – ZabaHarvest-out June 103 / 5Contributed by Bera Dunau (@BeraDunau) ZABA, the debut album from alternative rock band Glass Animals, is a relentlessly smooth piece of work. Indeed, it is the perfect accompaniment for a peaceful a.m. drive on a deserted freeway, where the only company can be found in the streetlights passing overhead. Unfortunately, this very smoothness is also the album’s greatest weakness, as it is so consistent in tone that the tracks have a tendency to blur together. This makes it a bit of a one-note effort, although the one thing that ZABA does, it does well. Glass Animals’ sound isRead More →

Meshell N’Degeocello – Comet, Come to MeNaive-out now2.5 / 5 There are a few things that give away to us how to score an album on this blog. Number one is ultimately compulsion – do we have to play an album again and again? Typhoon’s White Lighter suffered from this (and still does). Memory is the next thing, that is, do we keep playing the music in our head again and again (like Delta Spirit’s I Think I Found It)? And thirdly, if we’re familiar with the artist, where does it rate in their discography? To start from reverse, Me’shell NdegeOcello’s latest studio album, Comet,Read More →