Category: ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

There’s a lot to take in on this Brooklyn duo’s second record. Thematically, vocalist Michael Berdan mines his issues, burdens

Knowing that a musician spent more than two decades in a band is a good way of telling that they

A darkness pervades John Paul Pitts’ lyrics on Snowdonia, the first Surfer Blood album since the death, by cancer, of

Tim Showalter wants you to know how much he loves rock ’n’ roll. He’s as enraptured by the life-affirming powers

There are two kinds of Sadies on Northern Passages—one group making spacey, airy country/folk rock that sounds like it could’ve

Matthew Shipp’s music cycles like the seasons, and death and rebirth are part of the program. Piano Song is his

Chuck Prophet’s albums are noted for their literary lyrics, foreboding melodies and his ironic outlook. As if to underscore that

Across three vinyl LPs, the tech-heavy work of stonily cool singer Philip Oakey and a handful of knob twiddlers, drum

Fifty years after recording his first ambient piece—an art-school lampshade spinning at quarter speed—Brian Eno is still trying to capture

Guitarist Dennis Coffey was a fixture of the Detroit music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Boasting a fleet, dexterous

Out of the lengthy list of Robert Pollard’s Guided By Voices conspirators/collaborators, Tobin Sprout may well be the closest to

Japandroids—the wide-eyed, heart-sleeved, gloriously unreconstructed rockers whose last album (way back in 2012) bore the self-explanatory title Celebration Rock—probably aren’t