Album Reviews

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  Spectral Wound's 'Songs of Blood and Mire' Is More Party Than Pain

  PUBLISHED Aug 22, 2024

  Spectral Wound want you to think they're scary. That's fine, they should — they're a black metal band. Hailing from Montreal...

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  Fontaines D.C. Pen an Unreliable Encyclopedia of 'Romance'

  PUBLISHED Aug 21, 2024

  Love is not patient or kind. It fails and boasts. It appears contorted, grim, armed, and it poisons the angered soul with swarming radon ...

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  WUT Claw Their Way to Victory on 'Mingling with the Thorns'

  PUBLISHED Aug 21, 2024

  WUT have always been tender but tough. The Vancouver trio — guitarist Kaity McWhinney, bassist Tracey Vath and drummer Lauren Smith ...

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  Justin Townes Earle's Posthumous 'All In: Unreleased & Rarities (The New West Years)' Is a Bittersweet Farewell

  PUBLISHED Aug 8, 2024

  Covering Fleetwood Mac's biggest hit is a tall order, even for a performer and interpreter as gifted as Justin Townes Earle...

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  Ravyn Lenae Looks at Life with a 'Bird's Eye' on Her Sterling Sophomore Album

  PUBLISHED Aug 7, 2024

  Two years after her debut album 'HYPNOS,' Ravyn Lenae returns with 'Bird's Eye.' Another smorgasbord of the fluttery falsettos, iridescent ...

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  Respire's 'Hiraeth' Is Pure Sound and Fury

  PUBLISHED Jul 26, 2024

  Respire are a difficult band to categorize. While certain parts are somewhat easy to parse out — they're a diverse collective that fuses ...

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  Just Like the Real Year 2000, Ice Spice's 'Y2K!' Is a Big Buildup to a Bit of a Letdown

  PUBLISHED Jul 26, 2024

  The Y2K phenomenon was a big buildup to something that turned out to be an over-hyped anticlimax. In the months before the millennium...

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  The Red Clay Strays Are Made for the Spotlight on 'Made by These Moments'

  PUBLISHED Jul 25, 2024

  You don't sell out Nashville's historic Ryman Auditorium three nights in a row if you're not making good music. But Alabama's...