Album Reviews (Page 16)

Chain Gang of 1974 – Daydream ForeverWarner Brothers-out now3 / 5 We. Were. Stoked. To hear about the new Chain Gang album coming out. We still haven’t figured out the deal with White Guts (was it actually released? was it done piecemeal?), other than it was a top album of ours not too long ago. That one… that one brought a tear or two to our funkalicious hearts. And now, Kamtim Mohager (of the 3OH!3) dances his way back onto a major label to present: mind-melting dance beats. But, with a twist: it’s major label dance beats. Where once we had acerbic, rage-against-the-man vitriol, nowRead More →

Phox – Self-TitledPartisan Records-out now3.5 / 5 Baraboo, Wisconsinites  are known for… well, we’re not too sure what they’re known for. Cheese? Beer? Being close to Madison, we suppose. Though Madison is a nice Midwestern hub of the indie music world; and given that, here we have a nice indie band but a stone’s throw away from the capital. Who’d’ve thunk. Phox, despite borrowing a sense of spelling from Phish et al, is their own unpretentious pop sextet: gentle, lofty female vocals cast about light, almost ethereal-feeling instrumentation. Instrumentation that knows that singer Monica Martin is their honey drizzled-down-the-throat, come-lie-by-the-river-and-watch siren. The group is lightRead More →

Bella Clava – Medicine for MelancholySelf-Released-out now3 / 5 Canadians do rock. These particular Canadians especially. And on Bella Clava’s second full-length hard rocker, the quartet fight melancholy with melancholic tracks: the self-explanatory “Broken Spirit” and the terribly sunshiney “Bitter Jaded and Dumb,” to name a couple. Toronto’s best kept secret here, however, do not present their best performances; they don’t strike that particular spark, don’t evince that faith in their songs that they certainly should. They come off perhaps a bit too melancholy, even, slogging at times. We’re going to single out lead singer Caitlin Dacey as the main culprit here, not singing toRead More →