Short Attention Span Record Reviews Apr 2021 Vol. II

THE LOUDER STUFF

THE ARMED – Ultrapop
Sort of like Dillinger Escape Plan meets Genghis Tron. (7)

BONGZILLA – Weedsconsin
Listening to this album gave me some serious munchies, and I haven’t even touched the stuff in ages. (7)

DYLAN CARLSON & LORI GOLDSTON – Feral Angel
Carlson is the guy from Earth, Goldston is the cellist you know from Nirvana’s “MTV Unplugged”. No surprise this sounds like Earth with cello. (7)

GRETA VAN FLEET – The Battle At Garden's Gate
Making fun of these guys is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel but really, it’s not that bad if you don’t mind everything sounding like Rush doing a decent Led Zeppelin impression. (6)

MUSTASCH – A Final Warning - Chapter 1
21 minutes of hairy hard rock. (7)

JEFF ROSENSTOCK – Ska Dream
Rosenstock’s excellent 2020 album “No Dream” made the Music Geek’s Top-10 last year, and he just surprise-dropped a ska version of it! Ska is so uncool that this is pretty cool. (7)

THE TREATMENT – Waiting For Good Luck
(Big AC/DC verses) + (Big Def Leppard choruses) - (the Big production) = (7)


THE OTHER STUFF

RHIANNON GIDDENS & FRANCESCO TURRISI – They’re Calling Me Home
Recording in lockdown with her partner in life and music, Giddens looks into a centuries-long tradition to explore the concept of home. (8)

CORY HANSON – Pale Horse Rider
A simply fantastic psychedelic country record, like 1996 Radiohead doing a Gram Parsons tribute album. (8)

DAMON LOCKS & BLACK MONUMENT ENSEMBLE – Now
Afrobeat and gospel-infused experimental jazz, this is probably the blackest black music can get. (8)

PARKER MILLSAP – Be Here Instead
A singer-songwriter’s singer-songwriter on his 5th strong album. (8)

PEGGY SEEGER – First Farewell
Folk royalty bids us farewell after a career spanning seven decades. This is a beautiful album, full of warm and funny original songs. (8)

ESPERANZA SPALDING – Triangle EP
Three meditative vocal jazz exercises by Spalding and her band, perfect for these times. (8)

SHARON VAN ETTEN – Epic Ten
For the 10th anniversary reissue of her second album “Epic”, Van Etten invites a very eclectic mix of her influences and peers (from Fiona Apple to IDLES) to cover the whole thing and the result is, well, epic. (8)

Short Attention Span Record Reviews Apr 2021

CACTUS – Tightrope
70’s hard rock legends’ strong return. Worth the admission ticket even if it’s just for Carmine Appice’s huge kick drum sound, it’s like he’s hitting a wet blanket with a baseball bat. (7)

CLARK – Playground In A Lake
Veteran electronic musician rebrands himself as neoclassical, the label move from Warp Records to Deutsche Grammophon a strong signifier. (7)

DRY CLEANING – New Long Leg
First Black Country, New Road, now Dry Cleaning – I don’t know when/why post-punk-influenced art rock with vocalists who talk rather than sing became a thing, but it’s a very good thing. (8)

FLOATING POINTS & PHAROAH SANDERS – Promises
Electronica artist enlists 80-year old sax legend and the London Symphony Orchestra for triumphant ambient album. (8)

GENGHIS TRON – Dream Weapon
A very different sound from “Board Up The House”’s synth-led noisefest that had made them cult heroes back in 2008: Grindcore elements set aside, a new singer who goes for a shoegaze-y dreamy approach rather than screaming, a real drummer who adds an organic quality. End result is more synthwave than mathcore but better than Perturbator, Carpenter Brut and all those guys. (8)

GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR – G_d's Pee At State’s End!
More symphonic-punk than post-rock. (7)

NEW MOON JELLY ROLL FREEDOM ROCKERS – New Moon Jelly Roll Freedom Rockers Vol. 2
Just like Vol. 1 released in 2020: The same bunch of sort-of-famous blues, rock, and Americana guys having fun jamming in the studio. (7)

JANET SIMPSON – Safe Distance
An interesting female country rock singer/songwriter, an outsider to the country music establishment who does her own thing – she’s 44 and I believe this is just her first album. RYIL Margo Price, Lucinda Williams, that sort of thing. (7)

TOMAHAWK – Tonic Immobility
One of Patton’s bands but more Jesus Lizard than Faith No More. (8)

MORGAN WADE – Reckless
Add one more to the long list of new, interesting female country rock singer/songwriters. This one’s produced and mentored by Sadler Vaden, Jason Isbell’s guitarist, and she’s got a bit of grit under the nails. (7)