Pity Sex: “What Might Soothe You?”
Emo seems to be in the middle of another moment. 2015 has seen bands like Hop Along and Title Fight drop stellar albums and rightly become critical darlings. They represent a generation of bands who grew up on ...
77%Overall
Laura Stevenson: Cocksure
Laura Stevenson may have spent some time as a member of Bomb the Music Industry!, but other than her fiercely D.I.Y. approach to her solo music, she didn’t inherit all of that band’s ethos. Jeff Rosenstock, BtM...
86%Overall
Beach Slang: The Things We Do to Find People Who Feel Like Us
For as much as I loved Cheap Thrills on a Dead End Street and Who Would Ever Want Anything So Broken?, Beach Slang’s twin 2014 EPs, I recently learned that I didn’t actually know that much about the Philadelphi...
89%Overall
Deafheaven: New Bermuda
Few bands are more divisive than Deafheaven. On one hand, the Bay Area crew is beloved by critics: Their 2013 album Sunbather topped many year-end best-of lists, which is pretty unusual for a black metal album....
89%Overall
CHVRCHES: Every Open Eye
Since releasing The Bones of What You Believe in 2013, Scottish trio CHVRCHES have gone from a promising indie act to one of music’s most critically acclaimed bands. Seriously, they are beloved by everyone, to ...
65%Overall
Telekinesis: Ad Infinitum
As Telekinesis, Michael Benjamin Lerner has churned out three albums full of earnest, hooky power pop since 2009, establishing himself as one of the most critically underrated artists in music along the way. At...
Laura Stevenson: “Torch Song”
Laura Stevenson knows what it means to truly be punk, even if her music doesn’t outwardly reflect it. Stevenson, who’s an ex-member of beloved, fiercely-D.I.Y. New York collective Bomb the Music Industry!, has ...
80%Overall
FIDLAR: Too
Saying that FIDLAR lacks subtlety is like saying that Michael Jordan was an OK basketball player. The L.A. skate punks’ self-titled debut, released in 2013, was filled with on-the-nose jams about drinking cheap...
80%Overall
Royal Headache: High
A punk group with soul is truly a rarity, as is a sincere band that doesn’t wear its heart on its sleeve but in the sweat it leaves on the stage. Royal Headache is both.
After the Gaslight Anthem released Th...
73%Overall
The Good Life: Everybody’s Coming Down
For all the pained, anguished songs Tim Kasher has written about his divorce, it sure has built him a pretty nice career. With his full-time gig, Cursive, he put together one album based entirely on it (2000’s ...
Michael Hanf: “Chaser” [Premiere]
As drummer for eclectic Brooklyn octet San Fermin, Michael Hanf is no stranger to the unconventional. So when he decided to step out on his own, it made sense that the results were a little bit similar.
“Cha...