When Interpol burst onto the scene in 2002, their fully-realized sound and confident songwriting propelled them to the forefront of indie music. Their excellent debut, Turn On The Bright Lights, sort of inadvertently set the template for indie rock in the mid-aughts; tense, wiry music, Read More …
As a general rule, so-called “supergroups” are underwhelming at best. So often less than the sum of their parts, side projects suffer from the expectations placed upon them–and rightly so, because when you get a bunch of famous, creative musicians in a room together, why Read More …
Alvvays (pronounced “always,” not like a tipsy Christoph Waltz) is one of those bands that serendipitously sounds exactly like what their name promises: winsome, thoughtful music that sticks with the listener long after the album is over. There’s also an element of irony in the Read More …
There are very few video game franchises that I have been playing as long as Mario Kart. The first installment, Super Mario Kart, came with the Super Nintendo I received for Christmas in 1996. 18 years later, I’ve played every version of the game released Read More …
On their 2009 debut album, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart exploded out of the gate with an irresistibly hook-laden fuzz-fest. With their lo-fi charm, every song would have been a hit in the alternate universe where radio stations play a wider variety of Read More …
Grab your friends And hold them close. ‘Cuz we got no time for heroes And no room for ghosts. So sayeth colorful radio personality Dr. Death-Defying, our de facto narrator and first introduction into The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, a fantastic comic adventure Read More …
Forcefield, the new album from Ontario’s Tokyo Police Club, explodes out of the gate with the sprawling, stunning “Argentina (Parts I, II, III)”. Over a breathless eight-and-a-half minutes, TPC chart the course of a doomed weekend fling with several tempo and key changes. While it Read More …
The cover of St. Vincent, the self-titled fourth album from Annie Clark, posits the multi-instrumentalist as some sort of galactic empress or cult leader, glowering impressively from her throne. It’s a fitting image for this, an ambitious, monolithic collection of songs that, for all its Read More …
James Mercer and Brian Burton first hooked up in 2010, three years into a seemingly endless hiatus for the Shins and hot off Danger Mouse collaborations with Beck, Sparklehorse, and the Black Keys. Their eponymous LP, Broken Bells, was something of a curio – Mercer’s Read More …
It’s no secret that Nintendo has a largely stellar track record when it comes to first-party games, especially those starring their juggernaut characters. Even so, I say the following with absolutely no hyperbole: Super Mario 3D World is the best Mario game ever. It is Read More …