Album Review: Good Riddance - Thoughts and Prayers

Skate punk stalwarts Good Riddance released a new album and I wrote a review of it. Read my opinion of Thoughts and Prayers over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. 

Review of Good Riddance's Thoughts and Prayers

Editor's note: thoughts and prayers mean nothing. 

Album Review: Lingua Ignota - Caligula

I covered the chilling cry of righteous anger and revenge that is Lingua Ignota's Caligula for Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link Below.

Lingua Ignota's Caligula @ CCS

This may not be my best work. My mind was a little blow frankly and I'm at a loss for words.

Album Review: Disentomb - The Decaying Light

I checked out the new album from Brisbon death dealers Disentomb and you can read my review of the album The Decaying Light over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. It's brutal and I'm feeling it.

Review Disentomb's The The Decaying Light @ CCS

Idols be hungry.

Show Recap: P4k 2019

Pitchfork Festival 2019 is thankfully over. Chicago's festival season is over stuffed with festivals and outdoor concerts during the summer and the entirety of P4K 20-whenever is always one of my least favorite parts of the season each year. Tired, over-hyped, and bougie. I'm over it. I covered a few of the acts that I actually liked this year for Chicago Crowd Surfer. You can read my thoughts at the link below. Look for the recaps attributed to MDR.

Recap of P4k 2019 byt CCS Staff

Album Review: Victims - Horse and Sparrow Theory

Covered some crust punk this week over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Victims continues to impress me release after release and I'm glad I did a write up for this one. Link below.

Review of Victims' Horse and Sparrow Theory

What are some of your pet theories? Let me know in the comments.

Album Review: Immortal Bird - Thrive On Neglect

Another local metal band drops another boundary pushing album. We're living through a metal Renaissance in Chicago, I swear. Read my thoughts on the latest from Immortal Bird over at Chicago Crowd Surfer.

Review Immortal Bird's Thrive On Neglect

This one's a beast.

Show Recap: Logan Square Fest 2019

My coverage of Logan Square's 2019 edition is up over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. I honestly had more fun than I expected to this year. See what I thought of No Men, Hop Along, and Speedy Ortiz's after party at Sleeping Village with Froth and Fckr Jr. at the link.

Words about Logan Square Fest 2019 @ CCS

F*ck ICE

Album Review: Baroness - Gold & Grey

It’s almost sky fire day, and I’m getting in the mood for beer and explosions with the latest LP from southern sludge and progressive metal melody mavens Baroness, Gold and Grey. The group has managed to gain serious steam since 2015’s Purple (which snagged them a Grammy nomination) with increasingly euphonious and complex compositions that retain the gritty undertow of their earlier work. They’re like an arena-ready manifestation of Kylesa who you can listen to with your partner who prefers Stevie Nicks’ post-Fleetwood material over Ozzy’s post-Sabbath bellowing. Gold & Grey is the first album the band has released since the departure of guitarist Pete Adams, with former Cirque du Soleil (yes, THAT one) performer Gina Gleason taking up his axe. Gleason is already a crowd favorite and if you have seen the band live then you already know how exhilarating it is to watch her tear through a scorching solo. So where should you start with this behemoth? I recommend the lead-off single “Borderlines” with its gooey psychedelia, sun-parched, interlocking guitar rhythms and enormous vocal harmonies, it’s an excellent primer for the rest of the album, feeling very old while at the same time fresh and evocative. The rushing and explosive grooves of “Front Toward Enemy,” the roiling, resonate blues of “Broken Halo” are perfectly crafted to soundtrack the shock and astonishment of firework season, while the swaying melody and glowing space-rock preoccupation “Throw Me An Anchor” and the loft, dusty diamond studded “Tourniquet” will help you mellow out as the smoke clears off the horizon. Gold & Grey is an iconic feeling and incendiary additional to Baroness’s already worthy catalog, as well as the punchy pyre I need to ignite the fuse on this week’s festivities.

Grab a copy of Gold & Grey from John Dyer Baizley's own Abraxan Hymns Records

Interview: Dengue Fever

Image thanks to the band

Whoa! My interview with Cambodia psyche and indie rock innovators Dengue Fever is up over on CHIRP Radio's site. We discussed the history of Cambodian rock music, traditional cuisine, and a stage show inspired by their music, Cambodian Rock Band - a play by Lauren Yee. I had a blast chatting with the band and I think the interview turned out not half bad, not half bad at all.

Interview w/ Dengue Fever on the CHIRP Radio Podcast

I've got a fever and the only cure is a Cambodian rock band. 

Album Review: Abyssal - A Beacon in the Husk

At the bottom of the sea lives a horrible titan named Abyssal, they've emerged to disgorge their fourth LP and you can find my write up over at Chicago Crowd Surfer.

Review of Abyssal's A Beacon in the Husk

For some reason I didn't expect to like this one as much as I did. 

Album Review: Hatchie - Keepsake

Hatchie wants to make your dream pop dreams a reality. Check out my write up of her new album, Keepsake over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. 

Review of Hatchie's Keepsake

Your heart is like a locket. 

Album Review: Pacific Breeze: Japanese City

It's warming up outside and I am keeping cool with a delightful blast from our abandoned future-past, with a collection of Japanese pop from the past century, Pacific Breeze: Japanese City is now on Light in the Attic Records. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Japan was experiencing an unprecedented post-war economic boom driven by new developments in technology. Many of these technical wonders were exported to the US and elsewhere, cementing the country’s dominant position as a source of innovation and generating innumerable culture touchstones, the images, and sounds of which pervade culture to this day. Luxury items like walkmans, car cassette decks, and Roland TR 808s are iconic devices in our recent culture memory, inextricably linked to a period of excess and conspicuous consumption, as well as the frivolous fun of an era immortalized in the films of John Hughes and Robert Zemeckis. Japanese artists of the era were thirsty for a sound that matched the bright future that seemed to lay ahead, and so they forged that sound for themselves, combining smooth light funk and jazz-rock fusion with a mix of Japanese and English lyrics to paint sonic portraits of an imagined, and seemingly inevitable, techno-utopia. The fresh sound of this new style was deemed “city pop" because of its association with the rising urban, affluent class of the period. But the future imagined in these songs never came to pass. A market crash in the 1989s put the bull market to sleep and effectively ended the upward trajectory the country had experienced in the decades prior. Pacific Breeze: Japanese City is a curated collection of the lost sounds of the pre-crash world, the echos of which can still be heard in modern J-pop and the now ubiquitous vaporwave of Macintosh + and others. It is simultaneously some of the weirdest and undeniably earwarmy tunes to ever receive mainstream radio attention in an industrial nation. Think Steely Dan meets Boney M, or Devo meets Dinah Shore, or Diana Ross meets Orange Juice. It’s wild. It's weird. And goddammit if it isn't wonderful. I can already tell that this collection will be a constant companion of mine this summer, giving me hope for a future that is better than today, every day.

Pick up a copy from Light in the Attic Records

Interview: Hitter

Image provided by Hitter

My interview with local heavy rock rippers Hitter is finally airing on CHIRP Radio. We discuss heavy metal influences, recording their killer first demo, and the true meaning of friendship. If CHIRP's FM signal doesn't reach you where you live you can check out our conversation by visiting chirpradio.org. Direct link below. 

Interview with Hitter on the CHIRP Radio Podcast

Keep an eye on these guys. They're going to be big. 

Album Review: City Girl - Chroma Velocity

I got a little whimsical with my coverage of City Girl's Chroma Velocity. Seriously, give it a listen. It is magnificent! It's up over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. 

Review of City Girl's Chroma Velocity

Album Review: Personal Best - What You At

This week I covered the latest hard-pop heartache from very gay gal rockers Personal Best. Their new LP is What You At and my review is up over at Chicago Crowd Surfer.

Review of Personal Best's What You At

Girls who date girls write the best break up songs

Album Review: Shey Baba - Requiem

All work and no play can make me a weary boy. That’s why I’m diving into the patient, transportive R’nB of LA-based singer/songwriter Shey Baba. Requiem is his debut LP which he wrote over the course of two years spent in near isolation. The goal of his sabbatical was to record an album that can invoke a sense of immersive cinematography in the mind of the listeners, as a counterpoint to the way most people enjoy music today (e.g., as background noise). Baba has a soulful, mourning quality to his falsetto singing style that is not immediately identifiable as masculine, transgressing the boundaries of gendered performance much in the fashion of Haley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux. His style fits well within the deconstructed pop that perennially flows out of Scandinavia, earning him an opening slot for Norwegian singer Susanne Sundfør on her recent North American tour. Whether it is the wilting crestfallen dance of “Born Sick” and “Dreamer,” or the searching cool electronic rhythms of “Inside Out,” or the delicate needling flood of the title track “Requiem,” this album is a bountiful font of emotional complexity waiting to be tapped for your set. 

Get yourself a copy of Requiem here

Album Review: Fuming Mouth - The Grand Descent

Fuming Mouth is fury personified and their new album rips! I covered it over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below.

Review of Fuming Mouth's The Grand Descent

This is going to make it into my top 10 for the year. No doubt about. 

Album Review: Cave In - Final Transmission

Covered the new album by Cave In over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. A full albums worth of post/space rock mixed with metalcore, born out of tragedy.

Review of Cave In's Final Transmission

They've done better but this isn't bad. 

Album Review: Alice Clark - Alice Clark

Today I am waking up to the lovely and long displaced voice of Alice Clark. Her debut (and only record) is considered by some lost classic of ‘70s soul. Reissued this year via WEWANTSOUNDS Records, the album was tracked live in 1972 over two days at Record Plant Studios in NYC. Due to its poor initial sales, the record quickly fell out of print and Clark retired from music. Defying the odds, Clark’s recordings were revived as an integral component of the UK dance scene of the late ’80s, pushed by the owners of Acid Jazz records and their obsession with Clark’s exquisite brassy and playful tones and her record’s tightly controlled builds and instrumental sweeps. From the patient gospel-tinted pleading of “I Keep it Hid” to the disco-drenched drama and nimble intersecting melodies of “Don’t You Care,” to the jubilant soulful funk foray “Never Did I Stop Loving You” this is a tour de force ‘70s sounds, emancipated with emotion. Allow yourself to get a little sappy today with Alice Clark and this long lost jem.

Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Alice Clark's S/T over at WEANTSOUNDS Records

Album Review: Death Angel - Humanicide

Last week we saw the release of Bay area thrash legends Death Angel release the fantastic Humanicide. I like it quite a bit. My review of this politically charged return to form by the band is up over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below. 

Review of Death Angel's Humanicide

Humanity had it's chance. 

Album Review: Darkthrone - Old Star

Black metal pioneers Darkthrone released their latest foray into crusty doom Old Star this week. My coverage of this twisted daddy of rock album is over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below. 

Review of Darkthrone's Old Star

Some stars never lose their luster.  

Show Review: Doomed & Stoned 2019 @ Reggies Rock Club

Get your recommended dose of fuzz and fury with my write up of Doomed & Stoned 2019 featuring Blood Ceremony, Torche, Demon Lung, Wolf Blood, Frayle, Witch Ripper, and the incomparable Coven. It was one of those weekends that reminds me of why I'm a metal devotee. Check out my coverage over at Chicago Crowd Surfer.

Recap of Doomed and Stoned @ Reggies 

It's a good time to be a metal fan in Chicago. 

Coven (Photo by me)

Album Review: Earth - Full Upon Her Burning Lips

This week I covered the dusty new drone album Full Upon Her Burning Lips by Earth. It's an interesting departure for the band and I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Check it out over at Chicago Crowd Surfer.  

Review of Earth's Full Upon Her Burning Lips

Desert witch. Lady of the Earth. 

Album Review: Full of Hell - Weeping Choir

My mind is still reeling after experiencing grindcore genre benders Full of Hell and their new LP Weeping Choir. Read my ramblings tongues over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. 

Review of Full of Hell's Weeping Choir

Weep for the living, not the dead.   

Album Review: Steel Pulse - Mass Manipulation

This week I covered English reggae mainstays Steel Pulse and their new LP Mass Manipulation. Read all about how to break the back of the global corporate hegemony and my thoughts on the album over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. 

Review of Steel Pulse's Mass Manipulation

Forever in solidarity. 

Album Review: Esperanza Spalding - 12 Little Spells

I invite you to join me in exiting the mundane with the help of the award-winning, Harvard professor, and musical polymath, Esperanza Spalding and the reissue of her seventh LP, 12 Little Spells. Frankly, she needs no introduction. All 12 of these little spells were released as standalone singles with accompanying music videos last October. It’s now being combined with a sister EP comprising of four original tracks that should have never should have been separated from its sibling. Together they complete Spalding’s vision of an album that explores the extensions and limitations, the experiential lenses, and overlapping political and real economies that are represented by the human body through an overlay of soul-penetrating jazz, R’nB, funk, and orchestral pop. Beginning with the theatrical meanderings of “12 Little Spells (thoracic spine),” through to the swinging bell-shaped groove of “Thang (hips),” to the funky floating sweeper of “You have to Dance (feet),” and wrapping up with impossibly wet sounding “Lest We Forget (blood),” this is a beautiful and exceptionally composed record. Allow yourself the luxury of becoming lost in the enchanting sweep of Spalding’s incantations.

Get a copy of 12 Little Spells on vinyl here

Album Review: Sâver - They Came With Sunlight

Lots a brilliant brutal stuff in rotation this week.Check out my review of the latest album from Norwegian sludge metal upstarts Sâver over at Chicago Crowd Surfer.

Review of Sâver's They Came With Sunlight

Still curious who "they" are. 

Album Review: Possessed - Revelations of Oblivion

This week I covered the original death metal band, Possessed and their new LP Revelations of Oblivion. They're back from the abyss and I've got some thoughts on their return which you can read over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. 

Review of Possessed's Revelations of Oblivion

Spoilers: They nailed it! 

Show Review: Perturbator at Thalia Hall

Perturbator (Photo credit: CCS)

This week I checked out the future-imperfect cyber synth wraiths Perturbator at Thalia Hall. I dug a little deeper than usual in my recap of their set and seeing their show helped me unpack some ideas that had been rolling around in my mind for the past few weeks. My coverage is over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below. 

Show Recap Perturbator @ Thalia Hall

No future but what we make. 

Album Review: Combo Chimbita - Ahomale

Today I am snacking on some choice rhythmic ruminations, courtesy of Brooklyn’s Combo Chimbita. While home-based in a whitewashed hipster wasteland, the band transcends their surroundings with fealty to the global south. Their expressive, sharp-edged folk-funk combines traditional cumbia rhythms with futuristic psyche and soul with overtones of Afro-Latinx diaspora and lush post-punk. Ahomale is their second LP as well as the name of the album’s central character, a vessel of ancient cosmic knowledge, who seeks to free humanity from the trappings of hubris and intolerance. The music here is infused with a sense of spiritual purpose and a mission to open the listener’s eyes to true wisdom and transcendent human consciousness. Things start out unassuming enough with the dusty western waltz and Latinx soul of “Ahomale” which give way to darkly symphonic, distorted, and surging guitar riffs, a great primer for what the band has in store for you on the rest of the album. The chilling quite-loud-quite dynamic established on the title track is further embellished on the cobweb swept, crypt diving salsa of “Revelacion” and the future-forward reggae crossfire of “Te Vi.” Moodier moments of force are offered up on the dripping dub upheavel of “Al Templo” and the trippy trap groove and deconstructed ska of “Santo Fuerte.” Escape the mundane with the guiding embrace of Combo Chimbita.

Grab a vinyl copy of the album from Anti- Records here

Album Review: Fixed Fight - Empty Homes

My review of Danish metallic hardcore crew Fixed Fight's debut Empty Homes is up over on InEffect Hardcore. If you dig Snapecase and Converge but wish they leaned a little harder into death metal territory, then this LP is definitely worth checking out.

Review of Fixed Fight's Empty Homes

The first rule of Fixed Fight Club, is that you don't talk about Fixed Fight Club. The second rule of Fixed Fight Club, is that you don't talk about Fixed Fight Club.  

Album Review: Versus - Ex Nihilo

This week I covered Versus new EP Ex Nihilo for Chicago Crowd Surfer. Its exactly what you want from this greying indie bulwark in 2019. Indie rock can wear me down pretty quick but I'm definitely feeling this one. Link below. 

Review Versus' Ex Nihilo

Something from nothing means nothing, gotta have something...  

Album Review: Ringworm - Death Becomes My Voice

Chicago Crowd Surfer is running my review of the brutal and uncompromising return of hardcore legends Ringworm and their latest tour de force Death Becomes My Voice. This may be my album of the year. Only time will tell. Link below.

Review of Ringworm's Death Becomes My Voice

Death has always been my voice. 

Album Review: Fury - Failed Entertainment

This week in album reviews I had the honor of covering a new release by art-house youth crew upstarts Fury, tilted Failed Entertainment. My review is over on Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below.

Review of Fury's Failed Entertainment

Are you not entertained? 

Album Review: Helms Alee - Noctiluca

Nothing like music from a rainy city to set the mood for an overcast afternoon, right? Today I’m enjoying the angular cloud-bursting dynamics of Seattle post-hardcore mainstay, Helms Alee. Helms Alee formed in 2008 and is comprised of Ben Verellen on vocals and guitar, Dana James on bass, and Hozoji Margullis on drums. They play a loose, groovy style of rust yielding metallic punk buttressed by arching supports of terse grunge and quivering sludge metal. Being from the northwest, I guess you either mix your Drive Like Jehu with Soundgarden, or you just play Soundgarden (or you don’t play anything and get a job at Amazon HQ). Noctiluca is their fifth album and sees the band continue to maintain a solid level of energy and manicured rage through the honing of tight sheering guitars, gluey bass riffs, and duets of cleanly sung melodious female vocals and Melvins style, sky-blackening shouts. Their dynamic approach is best displayed on the shambolic drift-and-slam of the reverb wrapped “Be Rad Tomorrow.” Need more interlocking, rolling grooves? Check out the harmonic prickle and plunging grooves of “Interachnid.” Need something to sweat your angst out to? Smash play on the imposing Mastodon-esque “Lay Waste, Child” and the sludge-core knuckle-cracker “Word Problem.” Get inspired, not tired. 

Pick up a copy of Noctiluca from Sargent House Records today!

Album Review: Chevalier - Destiny Calls

Helsinki based heavy metal heathens Chevalier just dropped their new LP Destiny Calls, and it is everything you could want out of a speed metal album in 2019. My write up is at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below.

Review of Chevalier's Destiny Calls

Heed the call of destiny, and give this bad mother f*cker a spin.

Album Review: Aldous Harding - Designer

There is no one in the world like Aldous Harding, and her new album Designer is a distinctly transportive masterpiece. My write up is over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below. 

Review of Aldous Harding's Designer

Design the world you deserve, not the one you were born into...

Album Review: Walking Bicycle - Chooch EP

Walking Bicycle, local alternative rockers named for a strange hybrid mode of transportation, are thankfully back with some new music. The new Chooch EP may not be breaking new ground, but it's helping to break me out of the mood I'm in today. Check out my write up over at Chicago Crowd Surfer at the link below.

Review of Walking Bicycle's Chooch EP @ CCS

Do not ask for whom the bicycle bell tolls...

Album Review: Magic Circle - Departed Souls

Time to crack the seal on some fresh doom metal. This week I’m jamming to the latest from Magic Circle, a Boston based “true” doom metal band lead by Brendan Radigan, who pulls double duty in Pagan Altar. Departed Souls is their second LP, and follow up to 2015’s excellent Journey Blind. The group continues to indulge and refine their fusion of influences, bringing together the trippy wizardry of Black Sabbath, Pentagram, Witchfinder General, with the foggy medieval angst of the aforementioned Pagan Altar, along with grounded pragmatic songwriting that illuminates all manner of dreary fantasy escapes. The opening title track feels like a jail-broke lifer, freshly freed from the smoky confines of Vol IV, while “Valley of the Lepers” has a plodding preoccupation with the bruising biker blues of the Obsessed, and the “Nightland” helps to keep the heat on with its acrobatic guitar work and ale drown Thin Lizzy grooves. In need of a ballad to satiate your inner warrior bard? Look no further than the delicately textured “A Day Will Dawn Without Nightmares” and the muscular ecstasy of “Gone Again.”

Get your copy from 20 Buck Spins here

Interview: Mykele Deville

Image thanks to artist

My interview with Chicago DIY icon Mykele Deville is up at CHIRP Radio! Here is a quote from the bumper written by CHIRP staff because I don't think I can write a better description myself:  "Interviewer Mick Reed goes deep with Mykele Deville, local Chicago musician, poet, playwright and actor. Mick gets to the heart of Mykele's prolificity and what drives his unyielding creativity." Thanks to the staff at this awesome community radio station for making my conversation with Mykele possible. Direct link to the interview below. 

Interview with Mykele Deville for the CHIRP Radio Podcast

Pick up a copy of Mykele latest release Maintain from Chicago based No Trend Records here

Album Review: Anderson .Paak - Ventura

I am easing into the weekend with the help of Anderson .Paak’s new LP, Ventura. Ventura sees Anderson back in touch with his R’nB roots. Recorded in tandem with last year’s hip-hop forward release Oxnard, the two albums form a dynamic, hard-partying yin-yang. Like Outkast’s Speakerboxx/The Love Below, where together the two halves demonstrate the versatility of the group’s MCs, only in the case of Oxnard/Ventura it’s all just .Paak. The material on Ventura is reliable and consistent, exploring themes of devotion, be it to causes or each other. If you’re looking to really lean into mellowing out, then check into the silky and soulful “Come Home” featuring Andre 3000 and follow it up with the deep grooving intimacy, dancing synth keys, kicking bass, and sweet-tongued jazz-vocals of “Winners Circle.” If you are looking for something closer to Oxnard’s idiom, check out the G-funking shuffle of “Jet Black” featuring Brandy, and the P-funk truth billowing soul-train slide of “King James.” Need some more think grit in your groove? Up your prescription for smokey soul with a dose of the hip-swiveling, string bending two-step of “Make It Better” featuring Smokey Robinson. We're going to march through rest of this week together and .Paak is going to show us the way.

Snag a copy of this bad boy here

Album Review: Chokehold - With This Thread I Hold On

New stuff from Chokehold dropping this week. Old school metallic hardcore from Detroit. It doesn't get any realer than that. My write up of the new LP is up over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below. 

Review of Chokehold's With This Thread I Hold On @ CCS

This album sounds like a god damned cage match.

Album Review: After the Burial - Evergreen

After the Burial isn't dead yet. In fact, if their new album Evergreen is anything to go by, they may be mounting a serious comeback. My thoughts on the new LP are up at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below. 

Review of After the Burial's Evergreen at Chicago Crowd Surfer

Green is the color of renewal.

Album Review: Claude Fontaine - Claude Fontaine

Today I'm easing into my groove with the velvet croon of LA singer and songwriter, Claude Fontaine. Her debut LP it the direct result of a foggy London stroll a few years back where she stumbled upon Honest Jon’s Record store. The fated encounter led to the excavation of a deep, previously unacknowledged love of classic reggae, dub, and Brazilian music. After interrogating Honest Jon’s employees for a few days on the history and major players of her newly adopted musical obsession, Fontaine made it her mission to produce a record with the living legends who had wooed her heart. Through an extensive series of emails, voicemails, and care-packages sent between her, globe-trotting photographers and other vagabonds, she was able to pinpoint the whereabouts of Tony Chin and others, and mailed them her demos with a request to collaborate. Surprisingly, all of those she solicited said yes, and in just two sessions, she recorded the entirety of her debut LP with guitarists Chin, drummer Airto Moreira, bassist Ronnie McQueen of Steel Pulse and others lending her their various and inimitable talents. The results are something akin to Novella Vague produced by Lee “Scratch” Perry. Fontaine’s soft French-inflected jazz-croon drifts over swiftly moving caravans of South American fusion. Give a listen to the jaunty, twisting melody and syncopated skip of the magnetic “Cry for Another” and try to resist its charm. Fountain’s debut is one of those things that you never knew you needed in your life until it lands square in your lap.

Grab a copy of Claude Fontaine's debut from Innovative Leisure Records here.

Album Review: Inter Arma - Sulphur English

Inter Arma's new LP flat out kicked my ass. Sulpher English sees the band returning to their earlier sound while stepping up their songwriting in a big way. My full review is over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below.

Review of Inter Arma - Sulphur English

Horns up for Bill Bumgardner.

Album Review: American War Machine - Unholy War

NYC metallic hardcore supergroup American War Machine have dropped their debut LP, Unholy War. I have a few thoughts on it and you can check out my review over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below.

Review of American War Machine's Unholy War over at Chicago Crowd Surfer

War sucks. Controversial opinion, I know.

Show Review: Ministry at House of Vans, April 13, 2019

Photo by me

I was a lucky boy this week and got to check out Ministry as part of a Record Store Day promotion at House of Vans. Relive the magic with me by clicking the link below and reading my thoughts about the night over at Chicago Crowd Surfer.

Recap of Ministry at House of Vans

House of Wax Trax.

Album Review: Little Simz - Grey Area

I am keeping it real this week with Little Simz new LP, Grey Area. Little Simz is a London MC who took her first turn in the recording studio at age nine. Now twenty-five, she has been lauded as a rising star in international hip-hop, catching roses in her teeth thrown by none other than Lauren Hill and Kendrick Lamar (while receiving favorable critical comparisons to the same). Grey Area is her third LP and follow up to 2016’s ambitions Stillness in Wonderland, but with a decidedly more focused methodology this time around. Reaching the rip ol’ mile-stone of two and a half decades on planet earth has admitted produced a quarter-life crisis for Simz regarding her place in the world as a mother, artist, and activist. She mines the angst of her existential dilemmas in order to scrape up enough raw materials to forge into the toothy projectiles, a ten-round clip of incisive social commentary and self-affirming defiance that she titles Grey Area. This is protest music, to the extent that the personal is political, and politics is constructed to keep the historically oppressed in line. It's all cream, from the ostentatious boom-bap of “Offence” which jukes-and-jives around stinging strings and flutes over an airtight beat, to the ground shattering grime-infused flow of the bassy “Boss.” The Kendrick comparisons are most appropriate on the juicy funk of “Sherbet Sunset,” while “Wounds” has a cloak-and-dagger reggae vibe to it, and the uncomfortable heat resonating off of the wandering spiritual “Pressure” is maintained with the help of guests, Little Dragon. Conscious, confident, and resilient in the face of both internal and external conflicts, I can’t get enough of Grey Area right now!

Grab a copy of Grey Area on vinyl here, out now on Age 101 Music. 

Album Review: Big Eyes - Streets of the Lost

Yes! New Big Eyes! If you want to see me gush over this little powerpop powerhouse's new LP head over to Chicago Crowd Surfer for the full write up of Streets of the Lost. Warning: this is not an objective review. Not by a long shot. Link below. 

Review of Big Eyes' Streets of the Lost

Not all who wander are lost.