Porno Galactica MixTape Vol. 1 Mission Freak Before Metallica and Napster ever butted heads, people used to venture out and by their music on something called compact discs. Then, came the era of the download. Now, artists like Porno Galactica can spread their music without having to busk out on the pavement. Porno Galactica, consists […]
Album Reviews
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Album Review: Animals in the Dark | William Elliott Whitmore
William Elliott Whitmore Animals in the Dark www.williamelliottwhitmore.com William Elliott Whitmore’s fourth album (and major label debut), Animals in the Dark kicks off with what will likely be the most divisive track in his catalog: “Mutiny.” The call and response chant cribs lyrics from both Dr. Dre and The Bloodhound Gang, rides a wave of […]
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Album Review: Deer in the Night | Po' Girl
Po’ Girl Deer in the Night www.pogirl.net [audio:http://www.pogirl.net/deer/deer.mp3] Canada is, like, this whole other country. They apparently are secretly responsible for about half of the music we think of as American. Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen? All Canadian. Comes now Po’Girl–two women, Awna Texeira, and Allison Russell, one Torontonian, one Quebecois–sneaking across at Windsor, […]
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Album Review: Beat of Our Own Drum | JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound
JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound Beat of Our Own Drum www.myspace.com/theuptownsound JC Brooks comes from Chicago, but recently played at the Yacht Club, and from all reports, burned the joint down. I wasn’t able to make it out to that show, but this CD gives me a strong idea of the sort of fireworks […]
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Album Review: Soul on Display | Bonne Finken
Bonne Finken Soul on Display www.bonnefinken.com It takes some gut for a white girl from Knoxville, Iowa, to use “Soul” in her debut CD’s title. But Finken can, as they say in the parlance, bring it. She has a voice and delivery with the buttery depth of Annie Lennox, the effortless blues edge of Bonnie […]
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Album Review: Disaster Footage at Night by The Lonelyhearts
The Lonelyhearts Disaster Footage At Night Scenester Credentials www.thelonelyhearts.net Lonelyheart John Lindenbaum lives in Oakland, while Andre Perry lives in Iowa City; so the band is not quite bi-coastal — maybe sesqui- or hemi-coastal? It doesn’t really matter, what with the Internet turning us all into quivering monads afloat in a dimensionless sea. The songs […]
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Album Review: Flight Time by Pieta Brown
Pieta Brown Flight Time self-released www.pietabrown.com Pieta Brown’s latest EP Flight Time is written in a world occupied by Cadillacs and run away lovers, and in which a gallon of gas still cost 36 cents; somewhere just down the road from Tom Waits’ “Burma Shave.” However, this isn’t some sort of forced nostalgia. When she […]
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Album Review: Veins by Raw Mojo
Raw Mojo Veins www.rawmojo.net Raw Mojo is a 3 piece rock band you may have seen at shows around Iowa City. Their M.O. is to deliver short, concise stabs of pure rock and roll, without frills, pretension or irony. They deliver 10 songs in less than a half hour, and each song comprises the same […]
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Album Review: (self-titled) The Sullivan Gang
The Sullivan Gang Self-titled www.thesullivangang.com I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a CD in recent years that more overtly identifies itself as roots music. From Michelle Wiegand’s acoustic cover of country music classic “Abilene,” to the ass-kicking stomp of “The Colorado Mines Song,” there’s nothing on this CD that couldn’t have been recorded 40 years […]
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Album Review: The Vinyl Countdown
Scenester Credentials Vinyl Shores of the Tundra Heart of the Beckoning 12-inch Shores of the Tundra’s 12-inch is an impressive artifact before you even drop the needle. It’s a single-sided release, with the epic “Heart of the Reckoning” cut so that it plays from the label to the edge, with a stylized daisy pattern silk-screened […]
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CD Review: She Swings She Sways – Wasted Love Songs
She Swings She Sways Wasted Love Songs www.sheswingsshesways.com A common sophomoric “insight” into music is that we only have 12 notes, and that this imposes some upper limit on the possibility of musical expression. It’s not like it’s hard to demolish this idea with combinatorial mathematics, but both the argument and refutation are beside the […]
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Album Review: The Tanks – Keep Breaking Down
The TanksKeep Breaking DownScenester Credentialswww.myspace.com/thetanks When Keep Breaking Down opener, “Command Divide” begins in earnest, after a groan of wheezy feedback, it feels like the two years since the Tanks’ debut, Summon Creature was but a day. Lead singer Kevin Koppes bellows over a thick, sludgy mess concocted by bass player Adam Luksetich and skins […]
