Black Feelings
Black Feelings

By Eric Hill

Is it just me or is sneering no longer cool in rock? Not Johnny Rotten snotty, but John Lydon snide coolness that propelled PIL? Well, Montreal's Black Feelings channel the squint-eyed invectives and castle-storming propulsion of vintage post-punk, ranging from PIL to Bauhaus to This Heat. A special gold star to grail knight Owain Lawson, who doubles up on vocals and drums, flattening a path to your speakers. Bassist Brian Mitchell flaunts quadruple-jointed dexterity on his turbo-strumming runs. And Kyle Fostner (like Lawson, a former member of Les Angle Morts) irradiates the songs with both guitar and keyboards. Each track sounds like the chapters of an epic, with portent ("Lost Rings Pt.1" and "Lost Rings Pt. 2"), pride ("Golden Children") and haunted disquiet ("Gails"). It all adds up to work that will please cold wave, prog and post-punk fans of many stripes. (Alien8)

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Black Feather - Silhouette
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Blk Jks - After Robots
Box Elders - Alice and Friends
Brendan Benson - My Old, Familiar Friend
Caledonia - We Are America
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Choir of Young Believers - This is For the White In Your Eyes
Chuck Prophet - Let Freedom Ring
The Clean - Mister Pop
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Datarock - Red
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The Dodos - Time to Die
Doug Gillard - Call From Restricted
The Drums - Summertime!
Esther Ofarim - Esther Ofarim in London
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Fox Jaws - At Odds (Or, Exercises in Separation While United in the Fall)
General Elektriks - Good City For Dreamers
Golden Bloom - Fan the Flames
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Heat-Ray - Love All Over
Holmes - Holmes
Holy Sons - Criminal’s Return
Hopeful Monster - Metatasking
The Humbugs - On the Up Side
The Inner Banks - Songs from Disko Bay
Jack Peňate - Everything is New
Jesse Matheson - Pleasure Pounds
JJ - no 2
Lightning Dust - Infinite Light
Luxury Pond - Luxury Pond
Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs - Under the Covers Vol. 2
Morphine - At Your Service
Mount Eerie - Wind’s Poem
Mute Math - Armistice
Noah and The Whale - The First Days of Spring
Oranges Band - The Oranges Band Are Invisible
Owl City - Ocean Eyes
The Paper Cranes - Chivalry’s Dead
Piano Magic - Ovations
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Ramona Falls - Intuit
Regina Spektor - Far
RickWhiteAlbum - 137
Ryan Dahle - Irrational Anthems
Section 25 - Nature + Degree
Six Organs of Admittance - Luminous Light
Spirits - Spirits
Star & Micey - Star & Micey
Starlight Mints - Change Remains
Still Life Still - Girls Come Too
Susanna and the Magical Orchestra - 3
Taken By Trees - East of Eden
Thao with the Get Down Stay Down - Know Better Learn Faster
Thee American Revolution - Buddha Electrostorm
Thomas - Self-Help
To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie - Marlone
Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Night Castle
The Twilight Sad - Forget the Night Ahead
Various - Yo Gabba Gabba! Music is Awesome
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The fourth iteration of Calgary's Sled Island feels like a coming of age, with the annual event becoming a destination on the Canadian festival landscape alongside NXNE and Pop Montreal. The organizers have a knack for scoring scheduling coups (year one featured Boredoms, Cat Power and Spoon), and w... Full Review
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