Album Reviews

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  Lil Yachty's Psych Rock Enthusiasm Is Contagious on 'Let's Start Here.'

  PUBLISHED Feb 1, 2023

  Probably no one had "Lil Yachty makes a fantastic psych rock record" on their 2023 bingo card, but here we are. Let's Start Here. is a hard...

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  Young Fathers Are Bigger and Brighter Than Ever on 'Heavy Heavy'

  PUBLISHED Jan 31, 2023

  "I want your shield! I want your weapon!" shout Young Fathers on "I Saw," the confrontational and energetic single that encapsulates the ma...

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  Bob Dylan's 'Bootleg Series Vol. 17' Reveals 'Time Out of Mind' as One of His Greatest Albums

  PUBLISHED Jan 27, 2023

  "You ever feel just like your brain's been bolted to the wall?" Bob Dylan half-screams on the first version of "Can't Wait," captured in Ja...

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  Fucked Up's 'One Day' Captures the Band at Their Most Urgent

  PUBLISHED Jan 27, 2023

  In the liner notes to 1986's The Hammer Party, a compilation album of early EPs from noise rockers Big Black, Steve Albini reflects on the...

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  Sam Smith Gets in Their Own Way on 'Gloria'

  PUBLISHED Jan 27, 2023

  Going into their fourth studio album, the bar for Sam Smith is pretty damn high. Exploding into popularity in 2014 with their debut contemp...

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  Crosslegged Paints with a Multitude of Colours on 'Another Blue'

  PUBLISHED Jan 26, 2023

  To open up the sparse Bandcamp liner notes to her 2015 album Speck, Keba Robinson (AKA Crosslegged) wrote: "Tried some new things." To conc...

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  John Cale Is Still a Force on 'MERCY'

  PUBLISHED Jan 26, 2023

  The 17th studio album from Wales' reigning musical wizard — and his first in a decade — MERCY proves that, in his seventh decade of creatio...

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  Samia Swings Big on the Sweet, Striving 'Honey'

  PUBLISHED Jan 25, 2023

  Nashville-via-NYC songwriter Samia Najimy Finnerty's The Baby was one of 2020's more promising debuts, fitting in nicely with similar alter...