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Album Reviews

W.H. Walker: SUDS! [Album Review]

w-h-walker

If there were ever a genre-mashing type of music that absolutely needed to become widespread, it would have to be doo wop punk. And no, this not pointed in the direction of the popular ska scene from the 90’s. For a direct reference, please check out W.H. Walker’s triumphant EP SUDS! Never before has the sounds of the 50’s ever seemed to blend so perfectly with, well, anything! In this case, it meshes brilliantly with new age punk. With a good bit of 70’s Superdome packing choruses and new wave punk hooks, let’s just say that Walker knows all the ingredients to create a real good time. Read More »W.H. Walker: SUDS! [Album Review]

Easter Island: Better Things [Album Review]

easter-island

Easter Island is brothers Ethan and Asher Payne, who, along with drummer John Cable and bassist Andrew Terrell, create smooth, dreamy progressive pop in the vein of Stars or even Wye Oak. Better Things is filled with surreal pop songs, opening with the near shoegaze “Proud”. While the EP doesn’t embark completely into that space, it does flirt with it frequently. Read More »Easter Island: Better Things [Album Review]

Ezra Holbrook: Save Yourself [Album Review]

ezra-holbrook

Ezra Holbrook has that sensational type of voice that just burns within you and melts away all your despair like the lit end of a Camel cigarette. His harrowing Bazan-like words of power, hopelessness, and the eternal fires of love and disenchantment compliments his illustrious pipes. He is almost everything you might expect to hear in some bar filled with the hopelessly hopeless and desperate souls of his home of the great Portlandia. But Save Yourself proves he is also so much more than just another face concreted on the streets of paradise. Read More »Ezra Holbrook: Save Yourself [Album Review]

Lindsay Fuller: The Last Light I See [Album Review]

lindsay-fuller

One of the first lines you will hear on Lindsay Fuller’s beautiful, lyrically-based album The Last Light I See is: but every tale needs a villain so I signed myself up. And it pretty much gets even more awesomely depressing (yet also enlightening) from this point on. This Seattle artist has a style that is somewhere mixed in with the anger of Ani Difranco and the sad storytelling soulfulness of Traci Chapman. But, her stories are way cooler. Though riddled with beautiful piano solos and wonderful strumming, the tales of heartache, dead birds of life, penniless gypsies, and a fear of love that is so strong it leads you to suicide is what really makes this album very captivating. Read More »Lindsay Fuller: The Last Light I See [Album Review]

Beat Connection: Surf Noir [Album Review]

beat-connection

They call it “chillwave,” a term that has come to define this style of electronica meets psychidelia. The term is fitting, and of late has come to encompass a different side of beach-style pop thanks to the various effects and loops involved. It’s all quite hypnotic. I think the first band fitting the bill (the bill being beach-worthy chillwave) I really got into was Washed Out. Neon Indian followed, but with more experimentation. So the style has become prevalent of late, and Seattle band Beat Connection has created its own style somewhere between those to aforementioned bands. Read More »Beat Connection: Surf Noir [Album Review]

Electric Needle Room: The Presidents of the United States of America (Volume 1) [Album Review]

electric-needle-room

Did you know that George Washington was unable to have biological children because of a contraction of small pox in his youth? Or that Andrew Jackson once killed a man for insulting his wife? Do you really know absolutely anything about our 13th president Millard Fillmore? Well Matt Beat, a.k.a. Electric Needle Room, knows a lot. And he wants to tell you a little something about each of our first 15 presidents through 3-5 minute bedroom pop infused songs on The Presidents of the United States of America (Volume 1). Read More »Electric Needle Room: The Presidents of the United States of America (Volume 1) [Album Review]

Lake: You Are Alone b/w Higher Than Merry [Single Review]

lake

I instantly fell in love with Lake upon first hearing them open for Microphones and Karl Blau at the final show of Anacortes’s cherished Department Of Safety. That I hadn’t heard them before was the shocking item, being they share a hometown with K Records and also release their albums on the label. Lake’s dreamy psychedelic pop flirts with subtle breezes and forested hills. The harmonies put on display by Eli Moore and Ashley Eriksson mold perfection beyond its previous benchmark. Read More »Lake: You Are Alone b/w Higher Than Merry [Single Review]

Port St. Willow: Even // Wasteland [Album Review]

port-st-willow

Port St. Willow is the project of Nick Principe of Portland, OR, who says his album Even // Wasteland is “a record about standing in your own way.” After scrapping the origins of the project, Principe built it again from scratch. After an hour with Even // Wasteland (and knowing nothing of what came before), I still declare that it was well worth it. Read More »Port St. Willow: Even // Wasteland [Album Review]

Yellow Ostrich: The Mistress [Album Review]

  • Cyndi 

yellow-ostrich

Yellow Ostrich create brilliantly peculiar songs. Their latest album, The Mistress, is a delicious mixture of refreshing sound oddities. Listening to their work is like taking a trip on Willy Wonka’s wild boat ride, only less frightening. Clever lyrical themes and a clean composition make their music whimsical yet unpretentious. These guys know how to weave an element of surprise into their work offering an ideal album for our intermediary pre-spring days. The songs generate an unavoidable lightness in demeanor; they just feel good and are sheer fun to hear. Perhaps most striking is how smoothly the vocals are layered while blending with unexpected instrumental structure and chord progression. Read More »Yellow Ostrich: The Mistress [Album Review]

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