Posted November 07, 2012in Recent Posts, Sound Check
Kylie Minogue ‘The Abby Road Sessions’ Parlophone With 68 million albums sold and an Order of the British Empire from the Queen, Kylie Minogue is, for all intents and purposes, the Australian Madonna. However, while Madonna dourly refuses to perform her early work because she’s now somehow above it
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Posted October 31, 2012in Recent Posts, Sound Check
Bat For Lashes ‘The Haunted Man’ Parlophone Bat For Lashes is naked on the cover of her new album. If that was the best (or worst) thing about the album, reviewing it would be easy. But Bat For Lashes — real name Natasha Khan — doesn’t make anything easy for
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Posted October 24, 2012in Recent Posts, Sound Check
Suzanne Vega ‘Close Up, Volume 4: Songs of Family’ Amanuensis Productions Vega puts a bow on her “Close Up” series of albums with this fourth volume. Long known for her acoustic rock-ey folk, Vega has upped the ante here and taken 11 previously released tracks and stripped them to their
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Posted October 17, 2012in Recent Posts, Sound Check
‘Cokey G Is My Favorite Rapper’ BCG Records That’s mighty presumptuous of you, Cokey G. Even though I don’t know if I’m quite ready to go out and dub Cokey G as my favorite rapper, there’s no doubt about his talent. And while this particular flavor of harder,
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Posted October 17, 2012in Recent Posts, Sound Check
‘Monster’ Universal While relatively easy to write off as a glammed up novelty act, KISS has unleashed some pretty serious hard rock upon the masses in its time on this earth. “Monster” adds to the rich legacy… sort of. For fans of classic, meat-and-potatoes hard rock, there’s some
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Posted October 10, 2012in Recent Posts, Sound Check
‘Now For Plan A’ Zoë Records Certain bands conjure up feelings of a bygone time for people — not necessarily a specific event, but more just the remembered feeling of a time. The Tragically Hip is one of those bands for me. Listening to some of the deeper tracks
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Posted October 10, 2012in Recent Posts, Sound Check
‘Blood v. Electricity’ Independent Unknown Component — consisting of Keith Lynch and little else — is an impressive example of independent artistry. The first thing that stands out about “Blood v. Electricity” is how good it sounds. For the work of one man and his computer, the independently-mixed and
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Posted October 03, 2012in Sound Check
No Doubt ‘Push and Shove’ Interscope There are two ways to judge No Doubt’s sixth studio effort: in a void, or as a greater body of work. If you choose to do the former, it’s fine — it’s an inoffensive collection of electro-infused songs, offset by the Cali-ska infused “Settle
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Posted October 03, 2012in Sound Check
Deadmau5 ‘> album title goes here <’ Ultra Attention, electronic dance music fans: Deadmau5 has just released the album of the year. Oh wait, it’s NOT 2002 anymore? Well that’s a shame for “> album title goes here <,” because that’s the only scenario in which this album is in
Read More →By Chad Taylor soundcheck@dmcityview.com Trouble Lights ‘The Endless Prom’ Maximum Ames If you live in central Iowa and enjoy electro-pop, you had damn well already be familiar with Trouble Lights. With apologies to the Midwest’s other purveyors of dance floor pop, there’s nobody around doing it better than the Ames
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