Pinehurst Kids Bleed It Dry Barbaric By: Eric Greenwood Pinehurst Kids express teen angst and common sentimentality in far less obnoxious ways than peers and emo darlings, the Get Up Kids, despite the similarly poppy punk formula. Songwriter Joe Davis has a lightly strained voice when he punches it, and he writes poignant guitar hooks […]

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Swell Everybody Wants To Know Beggars Banquet By: Eric Greenwood I seriously doubt that anyone still cares, but Swell has never been a band that paid much attention to the masses. As underrated and under-appreciated as Swell has been over the past decade, I continue to be amazed every few years or so when some […]

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Bonny Billy More Revery Temporary Residence By: Eric Greenwood When a lauded songwriter puts out a collection of covers it usually indicates a bad case of writer's block, but since this EP follows hot on the heels of the long-awaited full-length, Ease Down The Road, Will Oldham proves that he's merely paying homage as opposed […]

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Idlewild 100 Broken Windows Capitol / Odeon / Food By: Eric Greenwood To say that Idlewild follows through on the “expect good things” promise of its debut full-length, Hope Is Important, is a bit of an understatement. With a focused sense of how to blend melody and noise on its second album, 100 Broken Windows, […]

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The Lies Resigned Kill Rock Stars By: Eric Greenwood The Lies offer a derivative and deliberate rehash of New Order's early organic/electronic dirges, circa 1981. New Order's Movement is one of my favorite albums, so I'm inclined to be excited by anything that would honor it; however, The Lies take things too far- shamelessly and […]

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Lemon Jelly Lemonjelly.ky XL / Beggars Banquet By: Eric Greenwood With a loungey mix not quite as buoyant or upbeat as Fantastic Plastic Machine but equally as kitschy, Lemon Jelly compiles its first three limited edition, vinyl-only EP's on this disc, warning, conscientiously, that if you already own the aforementioned EP's "there is no reason […]

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A.C. Cotton Half Way Down Self-Released By: Eric Greenwood I've never understood bar rock. Does sweating through generic tunes night after night in a shitty dive really appeal to aspiring musicians? Of course, no band would really consider itself bar rock, but sometimes I wonder. Why would a band purposely adopt a style that is […]

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