[Quick reviews of a whole slew albums I received late in the year and didn’t get a chance to acknowledge:] The Stevenson Ranch Davidians, “Life & Death” (self-released) – The L.A. quartet’s sophomore release has all the fuel for a psych-pop burner – gently rolling melodies, gorgeous guitar textures, plenty of allusions and excursions to […]
The headline says “favorite,” not “best,” and I will not pretend to have allowed much in the way of objectivity to meddle with this list. Not in 2009, a difficult year, one that perhaps above any other I consumed music with my heart, not my head. It was a trying year, and probably for many […]
Fool’s Gold, “Fool’s Gold” (IAMSOUND Records) – Be still my rockist heart. L.A.’s Fool’s Gold has made an album (out today) that bridges genres, crosses continents and even transcends language. The brainchild of singer-songwriter Luke Top and Foreign Born guitarist Lewis Pesacov, Fool’s Gold has blossomed into a collective that has come up with the […]
[Here begins my meager attempt to catch up on the myriad local releases stacked on my desk:] Sea Wolf, “White Water, White Bloom” (Dangerbird) – Alex Brown Church’s sophomore album is the like the second date with that person you were positively giddy over after the first outing. Then, after all the preening and anticipation, […]
Kissing Cousins’ name sounds cute, sure, but the Los Angeles quintet’s debut album “Pillar of Salt” [recommended] is serious stuff – brooding, yearning music that, in a stealthy way, is about as punk-rock as you can get with a flutist (Karo Haro). Songwriter Heather B. Heywood and bandmates Melissa Pleckham, Beth Zeigler, Alexis Woodall and […]
My only quibble with “New Tales to Tell: A Tribute to Love and Rockets” is the “tribute” part, which seems a bit presumptive. Call me stuffy, but only the truly seminal bands should get tributes; the good ones can be saluted, and the others, well, covered. In a decade-plus of tailoring the Bauhaus aesthetic to […]
The nominees for the U.K.’s Mercury Music Prize were announced this week, and if about half the shortlisted artists aren’t already familiar to Los Angeles audiences, more will be soon. In fact, the latest (and greatest, if you believe NME’s breathless accounts) synth-pop sensation, La Roux, play to a sold-out Troubadour tonight, with four other […]
Beastie Boys have canceled upcoming concert appearances – including a Sept. 24 date at the Hollywood Bowl – and pushed back the release of their new album “Hot Sauce Committee Part 1” after band member Adam “MCA” Yauch was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his salivary gland. The cancer is considered treatable, and Yauch […]
The songs of Miss Derringer are filled with tears, and blood, and an unhealthy dose of weaponry and various sharp objects. The Los Angeles quintet, not unlike the visual art of its frontwoman Liz McGrath, roots around in a sort of Gothic-tinged Americana while applying a whimsical veneer to its tales of felonies, misdemeanors and […]
Frankel, “Anonymity Is the New Fame” (Autumn Tone) – It must be the doubled vocals, but there seem to be two of Michael Orendy (aka Frankel) on his sophomore album – a guy who beams proudly at his latest orchestral constructs and a guy who cherishes the safety, and anonymity, of the bedroom where you […]
