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-12 posts tagged "indie pop"
Mike Donovan | Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Culture favors the futurist, the sample-heavy synth pop, spliced together post-modern masterpieces of poetic beauty and electronic grace. The charts — and the internet news feeds — rise and fall in response to the dexterity of the musically inclined computer wiz, master of software, producer extraordinaire. Guitars, tube amps, lovelorn feelings. These are nothing more
Matthew Kellenberg | Thursday, February 28, 2019
“The Pitchfork Effect”: When a Pitchfork review, typically given on a debut or early album, appreciably alters the trajectory of a given artist. Examples include Arcade Fire (“Funeral”: 9.7/10), Bon Iver (“For Emma, Forever Ago”: 8.1/10), Travis Morrison (“Travistan”: 0.0/10). The same can be said for the indie-pop/rock project Broken Social Scene. Its 2003 debut,
Matthew Kellenberg | Thursday, February 7, 2019
Zach Condon was 20 when his band Beirut released their debut album “Gulag Orkestar.” Condon wrote and recorded the album in his childhood bedroom in New Mexico, but the record itself explores destinations and cultures thousands of miles away: scenic Italy, the Rhineland and Balkan brass all figure into the album’s sound. Condon’s flair for
Matthew Kellenberg | Friday, October 26, 2018
The mere title of boy pablo’s sophomore release, “Soy Pablo,” illustrates more about the Norwegian pop band than does the record itself. The title, Spanish for “I am Pablo,” is a declaration of identity. In contrast, the seven tracks on “Soy Pablo” sound good but say little; all variations on one marketable “indie” theme. Boy
Hanna Kennedy | Monday, February 5, 2018
James Mercer takes his listeners down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass with The Shins’ latest album. “The Worm’s Heart” — released mid-January of this year — is a flipped version of the group’s 2017 release, “Heartworms.” In this alternate universe of Mercer’s making, slow songs become fast, fast become slow and the
Augie Collins | Friday, September 29, 2017
In January 2016, Rostam Batmanglij announced his departure from Vampire Weekend while the band was at the seeming peak of their popularity, after having disrupted the indie rock scene with three albums marked by global music influences. The split was an amicable one though, with Batmanglij and Ezra Koenig, the lead vocalist of Vampire Weekend,
Daniel O'Boyle | Thursday, August 31, 2017
On “90210,” the sixth track of Dent May’s “Across the Multiverse,” Dent May utters the least believable lyric on an album where the title track explores traversing space and time for love. In the second verse of the track, May refers to himself as a “Mississippi boy.” It’s a lyric that’s difficult to reconcile oneself
Christian Bunker | Thursday, September 8, 2016
The Oxford, England-based quartet Glass Animals is one of those bands that evade easy categorization into a genre. Equal parts indie rock and electronica, their music often sounds positively tribal yet owes a clear debt to the Bristol trip-hop scene of the nineties. However, no matter what genre you put them in, their music is
Mike Donovan | Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Angel Olsen’s latest release breaks away from the sparse introspection of her earlier records. The album is the 27-year-old songwriter’s attempt to repackage her trademark vulnerability and intimacy with a unique take on pop sensibility. With her first three studio albums, Olsen drew an honest and unadorned map of her headspace. On “Strange Cacti” and
Josh Batista | Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Alas, after four years of hiding, singer-songwriter Frank Ocean finally dropped the highly anticipated “Blonde.” The album was released independently by Mr. Ocean roughly 24 hours after his visual project “Endless,” a much more abstract and loose piece of work relative to “Blonde.” Following the incredible success of Ocean’s “Channel Orange,” fans had a lot