Album Reviews (Page 29)

Wire – “Change Becomes Us”Pink Flag-out March 261.5 / 5 Thirteen is an unlucky number for London punk rock quartet Wire, for in the thirty-six years of their musical career, they come off really flat. Their songs have stopped exploring, some of them mid-way, and the band has deposited some almost song-snippets here as a challenge of whether to their listeners as to whether they still need to keep innovating. On Change Becomes Us, they do, and they haven’t. Their latest studio album is tired, dragging its feet to uninspired beats, each note old and depressed from what must be a carload of recycled drumRead More →

Swallow Key – “Ghost Dancer”White Wulf Records-out now2 / 5 In true San Fran tradition Swallow Key (the work of one Robert Eujene Ogden) is an eclectic, unusual electronica band part world music and part groove beats. The sophomore album, Ghost Dancer, employs everything from the sitar to the xylophone to samples from George W. Bush. It’s ambitious music, yes, the kind that attempts to invade your cerebellum and still get you to boogie coolly to it, but in the end, we’re left a bit cold; the music comes off too art bratty, too over-the-top and out-of-the-ballpark for our tastes. It’s one of those albumsRead More →

Night Moves – “Colored Emotions”Domino Records-out now2.5 / 5 Minneapolis threesome Night Moves manages no minor feat in their pop: they make music that sounds good and is instantly forgettable. How do they do that on their debut? We think one of the problems lies in the fact that their songs don’t really cleave that far from each other: they each have backing guitar, dreamy Avi Buffalo-sounding vocals, whispery synth, all the tools you’d need to make a pretty neat pop album. We’re going to blame vocalist John Pelant for over layering and drowning his vocals here, as that’s the main culprit in these songs’Read More →