REVIEWS & NEWS
Groove-centric: Horse Lords – Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive *ALBUM REVIEW*
| ⭐⭐⭐✨ | 2020’s ‘The Common Task’ felt like a bit of a watershed moment for Horse Lords. In stumbling upon the kind of jerky, psychedelic math rock that has since become such a staple of their identity, they seem to have made it a mission to test the absolute limits of reiteration. It becomes…
Musical purgatory: Office Dog – Prime Corner *ALBUM REVIEW*
| ⭐⭐⭐ | Auckland-by-way-of-Dunedin band Office Dog are searching for something on their latest effort ‘Prime Corner’. Is it answers? A place to finally belong? Love? Whatever it happens to be, they don’t necessarily seem any closer to finding it on this release. Might they get close? I have a lot of questions for someone…
A deeply Australian album: Pond – Terrestrials ALBUM REVIEW
| ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | When it comes to musicians making a move into global waters, the Australian music industry seems to have a chronic tendency to file all of its strongest talent overseas in order to guarantee maximum profit. I suppose this has always been endemic to the international music business, but it is particularly heinous…
Juxtapositions: Olivia Rodrigo – you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love *ALBUM REVIEW*
| ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Since Olivia really came into her own on 2023’s ‘GUTS’, the bar has not only been set high, it’s practically created a makeshift skylight. Rodrigo’s heavy lean towards young love and heartbreak was given the rowdy urgency it needed on her breakout, and marked her down as a definitive threat for any…
Genuine melodicism: Iceage – For the Love of Grace & The Hereafter *ALBUM REVIEW*
| ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Denmark’s own Iceage have found themselves on a pretty remarkable trajectory. The unruly punk rock of their initial work resembles very little of their music to come. A creative peak was attained in 2014 with the grand artistic statement of ‘Plowing The Fields of Love’, with a newfound orchestral bent to their…
Serotonin deficiency in music form: feeble little horse – Bitknot ALBUM REVIEW
| ⭐⭐⭐ | A breath of fresh air like Pittsburgh’s own feeble little horse only comes around once in a blue moon. Their 2023 breakout album ‘Girl with Fish’ was a blindingly vibrant mesh of shoegaze, twee pop, indie rock and noise pop. Guitars were blown out into white noise, the leads were dagger sharp.…
Flanderisation: JPEGMAFIA – Experimental Rap *ALBUM REVIEW*
| ⭐⭐✨ | Peggy has always been forthright. Anyone who’s fraternised with his music could tell you that just from the first few bars of any given track. His inability to mince words has been one of his greatest strengths, and has given him a freedom with his commentary that would be the average rapper’s…
A mildly passionate experiment: Rostam – American Stories *ALBUM REVIEW*
| ⭐⭐⭐ | The ex-Vampire Weekend multi-instrumentalist melds folktronica and Americana for a project that is suitably warming, though is perhaps strongest in its most pared-down moments. His third studio album since his departure from the band, it is a relatively sharp left turn into a more subtle approach. As much Grizzly Bear in this…
Brief, but potent: Lip Critic – Theft World *ALBUM REVIEW*
| ⭐⭐⭐✨ | Having been on the rise for much of the 2020’s now, Lip Critic seem to be as baffled by their own continuing insanity as the rest of us. Their music appears to have a strange mind of its own, darting from one schizophrenic piece of instrumentation to the next. Voice-like sounds emerge…
Necessary political bluntness: Genesis Owusu – REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE *ALBUM REVIEW*
| ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨ | Australia has a serious treasure at its disposal. Kofi Owusu-Ansah, known by his pseudonym Genesis Owusu, has been methodically moving up the music industry ranks since he debuted back in 2021. The dizzyingly diverse ‘Smiling With No Teeth’ proved to people who were clued in that Kofi was no mere novice. To…
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