Review: Dead Gaze – “Dead Gaze”
Dead Gaze Dead Gaze Fat Cat Records – May 21st 2013 By Joshua Khan (@blaremag) Find it at: iTunes | Insound | Amazon MP3 7.5 Indie kids with pumped-up kicks will obviously put Dead Gaze on blast as it pictures a homebody that listens to Wavves way too much, but if you don’t know the difference between a Fat Cat and a Fat Possum, then you’ll find a way to embrace R. Cole Furlow’s... Read More
Review: Daft Punk – “Random Access Memories”
Daft Punk Random Access Memories Sony/Columbia – May 21st 2013 By Elyse Hill (@elyselikeswords) Find it at: iTunes | Insound | HMV Digital 9.0 Considering the current state of the inescapable EDM world, Daft Punk’s ninth release, Random Access Memories, comes from absolute left field. Eight years in the making and recorded almost free of samples or continuous loops (instead with a seemingly discordant... Read More
Review: Wampire – “Curiosity”
Wampire Curiosity Polyvinyl Records – May 14th 2013 By Joshua Khan (@blaremag) Find it at: iTunes | Insound | HMV Digital 7.7 One thing’s for sure, Wampire are trendsetters – weird dudes who are undoubtedly too cool for the cool kids because they don’t need to lift a finger to be cool. Instead they get to lose themselves in a haze of creativity and make a statement with an album that could... Read More
Review: Vampire Weekend – “Modern Vampires Of The City”
Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires Of The City XL Recordings – May 14th 2013 By Elyse Hill (@elyselikeswords) Find it at: iTunes | Insound | HMV Digital 8.5 Chalk it up to New Yorker pretension or an Ivy League education, but Vampire Weekend’s frontman Ezra Koenig has always been one for obscure pop culture references and literary sentiments that you find yourself singing along to without really knowing... Read More
Review: Savages – “Silence Yourself”
Savages Silence Yourself Matador/Pop Noire Records – May 7th 2013 By Joshua Khan (@blaremag) Find it at: iTunes | Insound | HMV Digital 8.5 Trapped by buzz, UK worshippers and endless comparisons to Birthday Party and Siouxsie And The Banshees, Savages’ debut practically guts the hype around them and drags a knife along the ground to capture your attention. Through 11 tracks, Silence Yourself inhales... Read More
Review: She & Him – “Volume 3″
She & Him Volume 3 Merge Records – May 7th 2013 By Elyse Hill (@elyselikeswords) Find it at: iTunes | Insound | HMV Digital 7.4 Though Zooey Deschanel has annoyingly been described as “adorkable”, when paired with M. Ward, the actress-turned-songstress is anything but. She & Him’s latest full-length album, Volume Three, paints Deschanel as a ’60s dreamer, fluctuating between... Read More
Review: Deerhunter – “Monomania”
Deerhunter Monomania 4AD – May 7th 2013 By Joshua Khan (@blaremag) Find it at: iTunes | Insound | HMV Digital 7.9 Effortlessly, Bradford Cox and the Deerhunter fellas have regurgitated rock and roll’s essence. From multiple angles, Monomania rewrites indie alternative to be the way it should be, climbing over avant-garde knicks and gritty blues knacks to pen full numbers that flip out with shades... Read More
Review: Major Lazer – “Free The Universe”
Major Lazer Free The Universe Downtown/Secretly Canadian – April 16th 2013 By Joshua Khan (@blaremag) Find it at: iTunes | Insound | HMV Digital 7.8 When Diplo first introduced Major Lazer in 2009, his goal was to expose a new audience to new ideas, and to say he hasn’t achieved that already is like openly proclaiming Carnival is like Spring Break on depressants. Free The Universe is another extension... Read More
Review: Kid Cudi – “Indicud”
Kid Cudi Indicud Universal Music Canada – April 16th 2013 By Joshua Khan (@blaremag) Find it at: iTunes | Insound | HMV Digital 6.4 Kid Cudi has always been an outsider and his ambition is to blame. The Cleve rhymesayer is known to push forward rather than look on, and like his third record entitled Indicud, it overflows when it becomes too grandeur, presenting him as a character with shoes you can’t... Read More
Review: James Blake – “Overgrown”
James Blake Overgrown ATLAS/Republic Records – April 8th 2013 By Elyse Hill (@elyselikeswords) Find it at: iTunes | Insound | HMV Digital 8.7 With the release of his self-titled debut in 2011, James Blake single-handedly created a new world of post-dubstep, infused with his own styling of soulful intonations over ambient beats, while challenging the notion of the typical song structure. His genius, displayed... Read More