Violent Femmes: We Can Do Anything
Violent Femmes We Can Do Anything (PIAS America) Will the Violent Femmes ever release a record that lives up to their self-titled debut album? The answer to that is, maybe. The Milwaukee-based band recently released their newest record, We Can Do Anything, and while it does not have the timelessness of other previously released songs, the Violent More...
Ray LaMontagne: Ouroboros
Ray LaMontagne Ouroboros (RCA Records) Rarely does a collection of songs run together so seamlessly as does Ray LaMontagne’s newest recording, a 40-minute sonic journey that, when taken as a whole, feels like More...
Lucinda Williams: The Ghosts of Highway 20
Lucinda Williams The Ghosts of Highway 20 (Highway 20 Records) After releasing her excellent 2014 double album, Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, it would be reasonable to expect Lucinda Williams to take some More...
Santigold: 99¢
Santigold 99¢ (Atlantic Records) “I’m pretty major, and I’ll say it out loud.” For her first album in four years, Santigold dives right in with a track that sounds like uninhibited bragging. While it’s More...
Mavis Staples: Livin’ on a High Note
Mavis Staples Livin’ on a High Note (ANTI-/Epitaph Records) If Mavis Staples is still unknown among people today, her most recent release, Livin’ on a High Note, will be a fitting and transcendent introduction More...
Wet: Don’t You
Wet Don’t You (Columbia) With one self-titled EP under its belt, and now a major-label debut, Brooklyn trio Wet is still quite unassuming. Don’t You is an ethereal, pop/R&B-influenced project full of wispy More...
Ra Ra Riot: Need Your Light
Ra Ra Riot Need Your Light (Barsuk Records) As a group, Ra Ra Riot haven’t been afraid to experiment with their sound since their string-augmented indie pop. On their fourth LP, the band still has just as much More...
Opeth: Deliverance & Damnation
Opeth Deliverance & Damnation (The End Records) Opeth has made a career out of mingling and mangling the sounds of ’60s folk, ’70s prog and ’90s death metal together into long, constructive opuses. At their More...
Gibrilville: The Foreigner J.J.C. Deluxe
Gibrilville The Foreigner J.J.C. Deluxe (Foreign Exchange Ent Group.gibrilville Records) Gibrilbville’s The Foreigner J.J.C Deluxe is a sprawling rap record about identity and incarceration as well as freedom More...
Cage the Elephant: Tell Me I’m Pretty
Cage the Elephant Tell Me I’m Pretty (RCA) Cage the Elephant’s newest record, Tell Me I’m Pretty, takes the blues and psychedelic rock, fuses them together, and does what can only be described as one of More...
