Album Review: Airstrip - Willing

Airstrip’s debut album, Willing, opens with an immediate declaration from the guitar. “Let’s prevent your face from sagging. Pick them up, your feet are dragging,” sings front man Matt Park. There’s a sarcastic tone, but it lets the listener know this record requires attention.

Airstrip is a collaboration of epic local proportions. Park, formerly of Veelee, is joined by John Crouch and Nick

Album Review: Amor de Dias - The House At Sea

The Clientele’s Alasdair MacLean and Lupe Núñez-Fernández have returned with a second album under the name Amor de Dias, The House At The Sea, and like its predecessor it’s a beautiful mix of spanish folk and gentle pop.

While Street Of The Love Of Days leaned a little more towards its Spanish folk influences, The House At Sea sounds more like recent Clientele albums. The exemplar of this is “

Album Review: Tracey Thorn - Tinsel and Lights

A Tracey Thorn Christmas album seems strange until you listen to it. Tinsel and Lights isn’t a normal tribute to tradition or a tongue-in-cheek spoof.

Through an eclectic selection of covers and a pair of original tunes, Tinsel and Lights paints Christmas as a myth of a time when people dream of catching a break and making changes.

“You loved it as a kid and now you need it more than you ever

Album Review: T0W3RS – Wyatt

If T0W3RS’ full length If All We Have Is Time is the introspective side of the band, then the Wyatt EP is its extroverted cousin.

The 5-song EP clocks in around 20 minutes, but it covers a lot of ground. Wyatt feels like a sneak peek of where this creative local group is going.

“Möbius Strip” opens the record with a chugging guitar line building tension until the chorus bursts like firework. “

Album Review: The Mountain Goats - Transcendental Youth

“I hide down in my corner because I like my corner,” John Darnielle sings on the opening track of The Mountain Goats latest LP, Transcendental Youth.

Darnielle has made a career out of revealing the dark crevasses and the ugly nooks and crannies that make up this corner. Up to this point, he has acted as a bard to make sure the stories of his unfortunate characters are told.

On Transcendental

Album Review: Mark Eitzel - Don't Be a Stranger

Don’t Be A Stranger, the new solo album from Mark Eitzel, sounds like a defiant last stand and the work of a man going down fighting.

Eitzel’s voice is well-wore, hollow, and haunting. The open, yet intimate arrangements around it amplify the effect. Despite his gentler vocals and quieter compositions, the lyrics give Don’t Be A Stranger a sharp bite.

The album begins with Eitzel walking us

Album Review: Tift Merritt - Traveling Alone

Tift Merritt’s transition to Yep Roc is off to a solid start with Traveling Alone, a record about solitude and independence that allows Merritt to shine.

On the opening title track, Merritt sings over sparse guitar in a tone that’s weary from hard lessons learned. She cuts to the chase. “I would teach him something. Say, ‘Son, you gotta hold your own and it’s good to have a taste for traveling

Album Review: Bob Mould - Silver Age

Bob Mould’s stellar new album, Silver Age, is more evidence that Merge Records is where old indie rockers go to revive themselves. From Superchunk to Redd Kross, Archers of Loaf to Polvo, Merge has found a formula rekindle interest in classic bands.

Silver Age sounds like a brand new Sugar album. It’s as if 1996 to 2011 didn’t happen and Mould hasn’t missed a beat. His songs still expertly

Album Review: California Wives - Art History

The debut album from Chicago quartet California Wives, Art History, is a well-executed take on new wave nostalgia, but fails to leave the listener with all the warm, fuzzy feelings that accompany the genre’s quintessential records.

Art History has a familiary sound. Glamorous guitars and sheets of synths surround the nasal, hushed vocals of lead singer Jayson Kramer while he sings big melodies.

Album Review: The Music Tapes - Mary's Voice

The Music Tapes’ Mary’s Voice, its first new album since 2008, is charming in its creation past times and imaginary places.

Mary’s Voice requires suspension of disbelief. Imaginary worlds tend to fall apart when their faults are picked apart, but the album can be transportive if listeners give it a chance. Thanks to the brilliant opening track, they're likely to.

Julian Koster, the main

Album Review: Sumner James - 29 Days

To record his first solo album, James Phillips, percussionist and producer for local favorite Bombadil, spent February 2012 camped out in a barn in Portland, Oregon. For 29 days he experimented with electronic music under the pressure of a February 29 deadline.

The result is 29 Days, a collection of 10 varied songs veneered with electronics recorded under the name Sumner James. On the surface

Album Review: Divine Fits - A Thing Called Divine Fits

For those familiar with Spoon's Britt Daniel, Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade and Handsome Furs, New Bomb Turks' Sam Brown, and keyboardist Alex Fischel, Divine Fits will like the sum of its parts and little more. The band combines the grimy grooves of Boeckner and the clean compositions of Daniel with precision. No detail feels left to chance.

The band's debut, A Thing Called Divine Fits, isn’t

Album Review: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Mature Themes

The new album from Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Mature Themes, feels very similar to MGMT’s Congratulations.

Both bands, capable of creating irresistible pop, have resisted the attention and expectations that come with such talents. 2010’s catchy “Round and Round” brought Ariel Pink moderate success, but Mature Themes bears little resemblence to it.

The gossamer “Only In My Dreams” feels

Album Review: Redd Kross - Researching the Blues

Maybe Ponce de León should’ve stopped by Merge Records to find the Fountain of Youth. With Redd Kross’ Researching the Blues — the band’s first record in 15 years — Merge has once again helped to revitalize a band nearly forgotten.

Researching the Blues is a blast. Redd Kross blow through 10 songs in 30 minutes and it never once sounds forced. If the band felt any pressure to make a successful

Album Review: Sugar - Copper Blue (Reissue)

The re-release of Sugar’s Copper Blue isn’t just for folks who loved it the first time around. It’s also for 20-somethings like me who have a post-1992 knowledge gap.

Recently renewed interest in the 80’s underground and hardcore scenes – Michael Azerrad’s "Our Band Could Be Your Life" playing a large role in this – provided many an education on the pioneers that led to Nirvana’s breakout

Album Review: Wood Ear - Steeple Vultures

“Been the hottest summer that I’ve known,” begins lead singer Nate Tarr on the opening title track of Wood Ear’s newest album, Steeple Vultures, and the band makes the listener sweat.

“Steeple Vultures” swelters. The humid harmonica and guitar radiate thick waves of heat. Like summer in North Carolina, the pressure from the warmth can seem comforting until it begins to burn. Booming drums and

Album Review: The dB's - Falling Off the Sky

Maybe it’s all the barbecue and Cheerwine, but North Carolina bands age better than others. After 30 years, the original lineup of The dB’s is back together and, like their Tar Heel brethren like Superchunk and Polvo, their new album, Falling Off the Sky, is not nostalgic fan service.

Vocalist, guitarist and song writer Peter Holsapple wastes no time brushing off the past. “You better wake up,

Album Review: Crocodiles - Endless Flowers

With a new label (French Kicks) and three new members in tow, Crocodiles sounds like a brand new band on their third LP, Endless Flowers.

Crocodiles has begun to let their melody drive songs rather than relying on a flood of noise to sweep listeners away. The band has stripped away a layer of noise and added a layer of 60s psychedelia. As a result, these songs are brighter and more nimble.

Album review: The Cribs - In The Belly of the Brazen Bull

In The Belly of The Brazen Bull gives fans of The Cribs pretty much anything they could ever want from the band, filtered through the 90s buzz lens of producers Steve Albini and Dave Fridmann.

The fifth record from the Yorkshire trio (former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr left the band in April 2011) runs the gamut. The first half cranks through short bursts of solid pop laced with aggressive

Album Review: Red Collar - Welcome Home

Three years after their debut, Pilgrim, Red Collar is back with Welcome Home, a focused effort full of smart songwriting and larger-than-life moments.

This time around around, lead singer Jason Kutchma is exposed front and center. He sounds extremely confident here and his grizzled voice takes over the record often. Welcome Home begins with him shouting at a boy to stand up straight in "