Boys Like Girls (2006) – 2.5 stars Love Drunk (2009) – 4 stars In the mid-to-late 00s, Boys Like Girls have piggybacked onto the pop-emo scene trail-blazed by bands like the (more talented) All-American Rejects. Their genre, emo, has now almost completely abandoned its intense, uncompromising Rites of Spring roots, now coming to rest somewhere in that spectrum between Jimmy…
Arcade Fire, EP (2003) – 2 stars Funeral (2004) – 4.5 stars Neon Bible (2007) – 4.5 stars Within seemingly 5 minutes of breaking onto the music scene, the Arcade Fire lost anonymity. David Bowie immediately proclaimed himself a major fan, festivals like Lollapalooza snapped them up, and U2 not only asked them to share…
This is a a reflection on Relient K’s career so far. It’s broken down in to eight parts. The Top 50 Relient K Songs Relient K (2000) – 2 stars The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek (2001) – 3 stars Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right (2003) – 5 stars Mmhmm (2004) – 4.5…
Chain Gang of Love (2003) – 4 stars Pretty in Black (2005) – 2 stars Lust, Lust, Lust (2008) – 5 stars In and Out of Control (2009) – 4 stars Formed in Copenhagen, of all places, the boy-girl duo The Raveonettes re-envisions rock and roll’s past into one endlessly entertaining vision of the present. …
[out of four stars] Toy Story (1995) – 4 stars A Bug’s Life (1998) – 3.5 stars Toy Story 2 (1999) – 4 stars Monsters, Inc. (2001) – 4 stars Finding Nemo (2003) – 4 stars The Incredibles (2004) – 4 stars Cars (2006) – 2.5 stars Ratatouille (2007) – 4 stars WALL•E (2008) –…
13 Songs (1990) – 5 stars Repeater +3 Songs (1990) – 4 stars Steady Diet of Nothing (1991) – 4 stars In on the Kill Taker (1993) – 5 stars Red Medicine (1995) – 5 stars End Hits (1998) – 3.5 stars The Argument (2001) – 4 stars A “staggeringly powerful combination,” as Rolling…
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006) – 4.5 stars Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007) – 4 stars Humbug (2009) – 4 stars Years before Radiohead invited yet another wave of critical fawning by offering an album for free download, the Arctic Monkeys cultivated a rabid following by giving away demos of early…
Placebo (1996) – 3 stars Without You I’m Nothing (1998) – 4.5 stars Black Market Music (2000) – 4 stars Sleeping With Ghosts (2003) – 3.5 stars Meds (2006) – 5 stars Battle for the Sun (2009) – 3.5 stars Placebo, I suppose you could say, is a cult band, one of those prototypical you-get-them-or-you-don’t…
As far as I’m concerned, there’s no greater loss to music than the suicide of Ian Curtis at the age of 23. There’s no one I’d rather bring back for a couple decades of recording than him. That’s because the heights reached by him and his band, Joy Division, in their brief existence, are both…
Silent Alarm (2005) – 3 1/2 stars A Weekend in the City (2007) – 4 1/2 stars Intimacy (2008) – 4 stars Bloc Party exploded right out of the gate in 2005 as one of the most acclaimed bands in this decade’s post-punk revival phase. Their debut album, Silent Alarm, managed the tricky feat…