$39.00
No More Shall We Part ended a four-year silence from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. A best-of was issued in 2000, but no new material had appeared since 1997's landmark album, The Boatman's Call. With that record, Cave had finally delivered what everyone knew he was capable of: an entire album of deeply tragic and beautiful love songs without irony, sarcasm, or violent resolution. It appears that The Boatman's Call altered the manner in which Cave writes songs, and the Bad Seeds illustrate it. Two musical directors -- the ubiquitous Mick Harvey and Dirty Three violinist Warren Ellis -- craft a sonic atmosphere whose textures deepen and widen Cave's most profound and beautiful lyrics to date. The ballads have the wide, spacious, sobering ambience one has come to expect from the Bad Seeds. There is an ethereal change in sound in the uptempo numbers which are, for lack of better terminology, musical novellas. They plumb the depths of blues, yet contain glissando and crescendos from the orchestral music of composers such as Fartein Valen and Olivier Messiaen. There are places, such as in "Oh My Lord," where rock & roll is evoked as a device, but this isn't rock music. A listen to "As I Sat Sadly by Her Side," "Hallelujah," and the aforementioned track (the most "rock" song here) will attest that it is merely one color on a musical palette that is more expansive now than at any time in the band's history. Also in the band's musical treasure trove is the addition of the McGarrigle sisters on backing vocals -- nowhere is their contribution more poignant than on the tenderly daunting, haunted house that is "Love Letter." Lyrically and as a vocalist, Cave has undergone a startling, profound metamorphosis. Gone is the angry, humorous cynic whose venom and bile touched even his lighter moments. His deep, taunting ambivalence about Christ and Christianity in general is gone, vanished into a maturity that ponders spiritual things contemplatively. Humor that pokes fun at "churchianity" remains, but not as a source of inspiration. Over these 12 tracks, Cave has taken the broken heart -- so openly exhibited on The Boatman's Call -- and elevated it to the place where he has learned to live, and to speak from as both an artist and a human being – All Music
Label: BMG – BMG15007V, Mute – LPSEEDS11 |
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Remastered, 180 g |
Country: USA & Canada |
Released: Jun 2015 |
Genre: Rock |
Style: Indie Rock, Alternative Rock |
$39.00
You And I is worthing noting mostly for being the studio demos Buckley recorded for Sony to showcase his vision for his legendary debut, Grace. It’s Buckley alone at the microphone, taking a moment every now and then to acknowledge producer Steve Addabbo. It’s easy to come in with cynicism toward yet another mining of Buckley’s catalog, but hearing him coo on Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman” is quick reminder of Buckley’s power to silence a room. The stark, naked quality of the recording makes it feel like Buckley is within reach. This feeling continues as he chops chords on Sly and the Family Stone’s “Everyday People”. It’s easy to get lost in his soothing vibrato on first listen, forgetting why you may have been skeptical in the first place. And maybe that’s a great place to leave this record — a glimpse into a moment of Buckley’s musical career, to be looked back at and remembered fondly and not over-examined. We have Grace to endless dissect anyway. – Consequence of Sound
Label: Columbia – 88875175851, Legacy – 88875175851 |
Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album, 180g |
Country: UK, Europe & US |
Released: 11 Mar 2016 |
Genre: Rock, Pop |
Style: Alternative Rock, Folk Rock, Indie Rock |
$39.00
Era Vulgaris is Homme’s fifth Queens album, and like the others, it’s intricately crafted, meticulously polished and ruthlessly efficient in its pursuit of depraved rock thrills, with robotic rhythm machines like “Turning on the Screw” and “I’m Designer.” Last time, Homme got slept on with the excellent but underrated Lullabies to Paralyze — people were thrown off initially by its down-in-the-dumps mood, which may be why the music took longer to kick in for some fans. But Era Vulgaris is a lot cockier than Lullabies, clobbering you instantly with guitars louder and uglier than a psychedelic biker party at Joshua Tree’s Skull Rock. “Misfit Love” is the ultimate Queens anthem, all low-register guitar crunch, with a percussion track that sounds like tennis balls the size of Betelgeuse crashing into a Moog factory. Homme snarls, “I wanna see my past in flames,” and he gets his wish. – Rolling Stone
Label: Interscope Records – B0030912-01, Rekords Rekords – B0030912-01, UMe – B0030912-01 |
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Gatefold |
Country: US |
Released: 20 Dec 2019 |
Genre: Rock |
Style: Stoner Rock, Indie Rock |
$30.00
The magnificent ego of Father John Misty makes his music seem really important. The music is not really that important, of course, but when you hear that smooth and gentle soft-rock with his olden croon centered so perfectly on every pitch, it seems like it is, in the way that narcissists or the canon of classic rock seem important. This outsized persona bursting forth from singer-songwriter Josh Tillman is full of self-mythology descended straight from Bob Dylan, dripping with a painted-on significance: His greatest passion is his thoughts. The autofiction of his songwriting imparts its own patina of truth, something that seems unassailable if you subscribe to the man, the voice, the facial hair. He strolls through his own songs like a melancholy king finding every opportunity to catch his reflection. – Pitchfork
Label: Sub Pop – SP1245
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Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
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Country: US
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Released: 2018
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Genre: Rock
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Style: Alternative Rock, Folk Rock
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$32.00
Conor Oberst’s music has never sounded lonely. Yes, he’s done catatonically despondent, inconsolable, dejected, maniacal—it's a lot to handle, and yet he’s always been surrounded by friends both local and legendary who believe in his vision, underscoring his status as one of the 21st century’s most mercurial and charismatic songwriters. Arriving almost a month after a comprehensive Bright Eyes boxed set that feels like a headstone for the band, Ruminations is a record like none other in Oberst’s catalog—stunning for how utterly alone he sounds. This is obvious in a technical sense, as there are no goddamn timpani rolls, no boys to keep strummin’ those guitars, just Oberst on harmonica, acoustic and piano with ten songs written during an Omaha winter and recorded in 48 hours. Plenty of folk artists make records like that. But there’s also a loneliness in Ruminations that’s far rare and disturbing—the loneliness one feels after taking stock and wondering if they have a friend left in the world. - Pitchfork
Label: Nonesuch – 556491-1 |
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album |
Country: US |
Released: 14 Oct 2016 |
Genre: Rock, Folk, World, & Country |
$30.00
Precision, minimalism, repetition, and unsettling deviations of said repetition — these are the building blocks of the surly universe created by Montreal's Suuns. It's a universe of high tension. A universe of resistance and surrender to all the hopelessness, anxiety and privilege of being self aware out here at the edge of history. Now, with Grammy-winning producer John Congleton at the helm, Suuns' sonic cornerstones have become heavier, more penetrating, nearly tactile. 'Hold/Still', their 3rd proper album, exists at the intersection of '20 Jazz Funk Greats' and 'Kid A' — a serpent's hiss that is also yearning and hot-blooded. - Bandcamp
Label: Secretly Canadian – SC329 |
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album |
Country: US |
Released: 15 Apr 2016 |
Genre: Electronic, Rock |
Style: Indie Rock, Krautrock, Art Rock |
$39.00
In Spades is the eighth studio album by American alternative rock band The Afghan Whigs, released on May 5, 2017 on Sub Pop Records. - Wiki
“Cleromancy” isn’t a word one normally finds in rock lyrics. Then again, In Spades – the forthcoming album by The Afghan Whigs, from which the new song “Oriole” hails – is defined only by its own mystical inner logic. The term means to divine, in a supernatural manner, a prediction of destiny from the random casting of lots: the throwing of dice, picking a card from a deck. From its evocative cover art to the troubled spirits haunting its halls, In Spades casts a spell that challenges the listener to unpack its dark metaphors and spectral imagery. – Sub Pop
“As ever, Dulli spends the majority of In Spades teetering on that shaky precipice where romance turns to rancor, and pillow talk leads to restraining orders. But like a master genre filmmaker, he’s always got a couple of new tricks up his sleeves to keep us on our toes. “Birdland” honors his tradition for slow-burning, cinematicscene-setters, but rather than gently immerse us into his nocturnal netherworld, we’re pushed right in by staccato shocks of harmonium and operatic vocal gasps, like strobe-lit flickers of an image that take you a few moments to process into a fluid moving picture. “We’re coming alive in the cold,” Dulli declares, like a beast reawakened and ready to do damage once again.
In Spades clocks in at just 10 songs in 36 minutes, but feels as expansive and substantial as a double-album statement. And that’s thanks in large part to coolly paced, multi-sectional songs like “Arabian Heights” and “Light As a Feather,” where Dulli masterfully ratchets up the tension before unleashing his fevered howl at just the right moment (while reminding us that the Whigs are the rare rock band that can pull liberally from ’70s Blaxploitation funk without sounding like they’re making a jokey porno soundtrack).” – Pitchfork
Item description:
Artist: |
Afghan Whigs |
Title: |
In Spades |
Label: |
Sub Pop |
Format: |
Vinyl, LP, Album, 180 Gram |
Pressing: |
USA |
Release Date: |
05 May 2017 |
Genre: |
Rock |
Style: |
Alternative Rock |
Catalog No: |
SP1150 |
Condition: |
New |