Category: ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

Essential New Music: The Creation’s “Action Painting”
Every 10 years, another generation discovers the Creation, via periodic reissues such as this. Beginning as another ’60s beat group

Essential New Music: Elbow’s “Little Fictions”
After a 25-year career that began with a Mercury Prize shortlisting and a Brit Award nod for best new band,

Essential New Music: Scott H. Biram’s “The Bad Testament”
Scott H. Biram has got kind of a corny shtick on paper: the old one-man band, all grizzly and gruff,

Essential New Music: Brokeback’s “Illinois River Valley Blues”
Though some things change, others stay the same. Across 22 years and multiple incarnations, Douglas McCombs (also of Tortoise, Eleventh

Essential New Music: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s “The Tourist”
"Indie rock” has become such an amorphous and broad category that it’s nearly meaningless. But you could do worse than

Essential New Music: Eric Matthews’ “Too Much World”
Eric Matthews didn’t invent chamber pop, but he certainly set an impossibly high bar with his 1995 debut, It’s Heavy

Essential New Music: Sorority Noise’s “You’re Not As _____ As You Think”
On Sorority Noise’s “A Portrait Of,” singer Cameron Boucher mumbles a little anecdote about what the afterlife might be like—“and

Essential New Music: Uniform’s “Wake In Fright”
There’s a lot to take in on this Brooklyn duo’s second record. Thematically, vocalist Michael Berdan mines his issues, burdens