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Ivan and Alyosha – It’s All Just PretendDualtone Records-out now3.5 / 5 Five-some Seattle-ites Ivan and Alyosha come with a strong sophomore album centered on singable melodies, earnestness, and rockin’ simplicity. It’s All Just Pretend is easy to get into, straightforward, and perhaps not as deep as we’d truly like. But what’s here is pleasant and good, filling, and satisfying. Our favorites come at opposite ends of the spectrum. First, “Modern Man.” It’s a 70s rocker laden with a bit of reverb, the kind of guitar hook way from left field out of an acoustic ensemble. It’s gritty and good. The closer, “Don’t Lose YourRead More →

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My Morning Jacket – The WaterfallATO Records-out tomorrow3.5 / 5 It’s an improvement, is what we’re going to say. Disappointed with 2011’s Circuital, which was an album-long slow build (into what?) The Waterfall feels something like a concept, using natural imagery (Spring, the tropics, …and of course a waterfall) that we can’t quite piece together. The title track immediately reminds us of CCR, and that band’s repeated use of rain: “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” et al. But while Creedence very ably used (and re-used) water in terms of political change, “In Its Infancy (The Waterfall)” seems to be a strange conglomeration of someRead More →

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Calexico – Edge of the SunAnti / City Slang-out April 144 / 5 It’s a return to everything we love about Calexico: swirling sand dunes, flamenco beats, mariachi swagger. The Tuscon, AZ sextet to their ninth studio album in a nearly twenty-year lifespan. How many things last twenty years? A good car? A stable marriage? If a band is in part a marriage of musicians, then we’d have assumed Calexico’s marriage to have grown quite stale and predictable by now. And on Edge of the Sun, band co-founders Joey Burns (vocals, guitar) and John Convertino (percussion) show that Calexico’s spark is alive and well. ToRead More →

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Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & LowellAsthmatic Kitty Records-out now4.5 / 5 Stylistically, Sufjan Stevens’ seventh studio full-length falls somewhere between Michigan and Illinois: it takes Michigan‘s somber mood, a quieter, more introverted desperation than that album’s more externalized search. It takes not Illinois’ lush orchestration, but its polish, its perfectionism and completion. Add acoustic guitar, piano, and Stevens’ soft vocals, and the result is an achingly beautiful album about life and loss, death and ghosts. Yes, we gave high marks to his previous “Age of Adz,” but quite frankly, if we could take that back and give them all here, we would do that inRead More →