Articles by Scott Tavener

This Will Destroy You / Lymbyc Systym

Field Studies

PUBLISHED Mar 9, 2009

This Will Destroy You (TWDY) and Lymbyc Systym's five-track split, Field Studies, starts incongruently. Hints of distortion begin humongous...

Mt. St. Helen's Vietnam Band

Mt. St. Helen's Vietnam Band

PUBLISHED Mar 4, 2009

Cloyingly clever, this Seattle-based quintet's terrible name under-sells a record that brims with intelligence, subtle hooks and confidence...

Soundtrack of Our Lives

Communion

PUBLISHED Feb 17, 2009

Soundtrack of Our Lives disappeared during the Swedish pop boon (bad timing). Evidently, the band were busy reading hippie literature, list...

Beirut

March of the Zapotec and Realpeople Holland

PUBLISHED Feb 17, 2009

With double EP March of the Zapotec and Realpeople Holland, Beirut's mastermind/musical imperialist Zach Condon turns his sights to Mexico...

The Submarines

The Drake Underground, Toronto ON February 15

PUBLISHED Feb 17, 2009

L.A.'s smile-pop purveyors the Submarines effuse appositeness. Founders Blake Hazard and John Dragonetti broke up, separately wrote an albu...

High Places

Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto ON February 9

PUBLISHED Feb 11, 2009

Brooklyn-spawned plug-and-play duo High Places didn't offer a very visually-arresting setup: Mary Pearson and Robert Barber stood side-by s...

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Darren Lynn Bousman

PUBLISHED Feb 6, 2009

Like the Shitty Beatles (see Wayne's World), Repo! The Genetic Opera is not a clever name. During an epidemic of organ failure, surgical gi...

Bishop Allen's Justin Rice

PUBLISHED Jan 29, 2009

Subtly ubiquitous, Brooklyn pop rock combo, Bishop Allen, have clandestinely seeped into public consciousness. Their hook-heavy songs have...