Editor's Note: Over the past few months, our album review coverage has steadily increased, but we still can't cover everything. The 'What We Missed...' posts are our attempt to touch some albums we didn't weren't able to give a proper review to over the past month, but still feel deserve a mention. Enjoy.
Chvrches - The Bones Of What You Believe
This one might've slipped through the cracks, but it's since become quite the critical lightning rod, with some even citing it and Haim's debut as proof that indie rock is dead and buried. Whatever. In any case, this debut from the Glasgow electronica outfit is sheer perfection; a panoply of electronic pop styles seamlessly and tastefully delivered with a needed dose feminist vigor by the magnificent Lauren Mayberry, with nary a beat or note out of place. This album is so strong, even the 2 songs she doesn't sing on are excellent. A wonderful and breathtaking debut.
Fuzz - Fuzz
I just don't get it, Ty Segall has managed to be incredibly prolific while maintaining an equally consistent level of quality. At this point, I have to assume the man is a space alien or robot sent from the future. Fuzz is another one of Ty Segall's bands, pairing Segall with San Francisco based Charlie Moonheart. The record is a blast of epic, heavy jams that moves between sludgy doom and serious riffage with the greatest of ease. Seriously, that might not be the most eloquent way I have ever described an album but Fuzz demands this sort of vocabulary.
~ Cliff Parks
Fuzz - Fuzz
I just don't get it, Ty Segall has managed to be incredibly prolific while maintaining an equally consistent level of quality. At this point, I have to assume the man is a space alien or robot sent from the future. Fuzz is another one of Ty Segall's bands, pairing Segall with San Francisco based Charlie Moonheart. The record is a blast of epic, heavy jams that moves between sludgy doom and serious riffage with the greatest of ease. Seriously, that might not be the most eloquent way I have ever described an album but Fuzz demands this sort of vocabulary.
~ Mike Torsell
Darkside - Psychic
If you needed someone to score a spaghetti-western set in space in 2013, you’d look to Darkside, the product of producer Nicolas Jaar and guitarist Dave Harrington. Their second album of the year, Psychic, after the refracted Daftside remix project, Random Access Memories Memories, is a study in tension, and having the patience to release that tension slowly. If you need a playbook from Jaar’s already accomplished career at 23, you could look to his Essential Mix from 2012: a melding of classical, soundtracks, and new electronic/avant-garde music occasionally bubbling up like lava with bits you can move to. Psychic has those moments, the sturdy low-end taking over for the psychedelic and kraut-rock indebted high, only to revert back again. The album itself is a cohesive whole, sonically burbling and rolling into the next moment, each track fitting into the larger machine.
~ Nick Torsell
The Head and The Heart - Lets Be Still
The
Head and the Heart’s earnest sophomore album, Lets Be Still, debuted in mid-October to very positive reviews,
something that was hoped for by fans who wanted the band to be more than just a
flash-in-the-pan folk footnote of Seattle’s music scene. No one is really sure
if the band is in the clear yet, but this album is an important milestone in
moving beyond that. Though full of the band’s trademark harmonies and nice piano/guitar/violin
instrumentals, Lets Be Still is
notably different from the first album. Where the first was gritty and jaunty,
this album has a polished, studio-produced sound that makes it a perfect coffee
shop soundtrack, hence it being carried at Starbucks and the like. “Shake” and
“Homecoming Heroes” are the album’s buzzed about songs, but faithful YouTube
devotees will be pleased with fan favorites like “Josh McBride” and
“Fire/Fear.”
~ Sarah Machajewski
Well Chvrches technically came out in September. Oh well...