The first thing I notice about Eric Paul’s Killer EP is guitar tone. In particular, the opening track, “Paradise of Sin,” has a wide stereo guitar sound, subtly overdriven. It’s the kind of electrified guitar sound that gives you that warm feeling when you hear it at concert volume, combined with the punchy drums that bob and weave around the guitar parts. […]
Ohio native MC Animosity has been making music in Iowa City since 1998. He currently serves as lead vocalist for the Uniphonics, who have opened for the Roots, Wu-Tang and many more amazing hip-hop, jazz and rock-influenced artists. His latest project, ’79 Til Now, Vol. 1, with production from DJ Johnny Sixx […]
Out May 17, Throes, the new album from Iowa City’s metal mavens Aseethe (their second since signing to Thrill Jockey), is overflowing with emotion. This album is exhausting. The opening title track is a nine-and-a-half-minute relentless epic. Aseethe pulls no punches, demanding full investment and offering no quarter. […]
There is a long-standing tradition in jazz of performing pop standards, and those songs became kind of a lingua franca for jazz musicians. Iowa City jazz bassist and vocalist Blake Shaw — whose latest album, it happened., is a collection of standards — explained the tradition […]
The Birth of Birds by The Ruralists I’m new to Iowa (well, I’ve been here almost 18 years, but New Jersey only has a much more reasonable 21 counties to comprehend, dammit), so I had to look up where Sioux Center is to get a sense of where the Ruralists hail from. It’s further north […]
With only four tracks, clocking in at 26:44, it’s likely that Skin of Earth’s ‘Burn Barrel’ — released at the tail end of 2018 as an omen, a prediction, a benediction for the year to come — should rightly be called an EP. But damn, it doesn’t feel like one. […]
What makes Identity Crisis more than an academic exercise is Benson’s skill as a composer and producer. The production on “Bite Your Lip” and “Til You Got It” verges on EDM-tinged pop, but it has enough harmonic variety to not feel as synthetic and fake as EDM can. […]
Crystal City’s first two albums — ‘Change’ (2014) and ‘Bartenderly’ (2017) — drew from Paul Westerberg’s playbook. They shared his penchant for ramshackle punk and glistening, soaring pop — the electric and acoustic, the sad and hopeful. […]
Months after its initial release, I still feel my ear pleading for another listen of Elizabeth Moen’s third album, A Million Miles Away. While Moen has always possessed a certain sage sound, her junior album ups the stakes […]
Iowa City’s own The Only Ion recently gave us his newest EP, Roses, in May 2018. It’s such a diverse and articulate album it’s really hard to label […]
Back in 2012, an Iowa City-based string band named themselves Flash in a Pan in the belief that they would play two shows and dissolve quietly into the night. Those two shows were seven years ago now, and 2018 saw the band release their second full-length album in as many years. […]
The metal scene in Iowa City has always been a pocket universe where the boundary between fans and musicians is permeable. It’s like the bar in Cheers — where everybody knows your name — but with more long hair, tattoos and black leather. The competition between bands is to be the loudest, heaviest and tightest, not the most successful. […]
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