Beck Sea Change DGC By: Eric Greenwood Is it a coincidence that Sea Change is Beck's most maudlin album to date and he's now a full-blown Scientologist? Doubtful. Paying big bucks to get that alien off your back to reach OT level 7 or whatever must be trying for a sensitive soul like Beck's. I'm […]

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The Raveonettes Whip It On Crunchy Frog By: Eric Greenwood Something dubious is afoot when clear out of the blue both Rolling Stone and MTV – your sources for the sounds of the underground, right? – are showering a previously unheard of band with unequivocal praise. Add to that the fact that the band's debut […]

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Little Joe Gould Like The Exorcist, But More Breakdancing Eyeball By: Eric Greenwood Ok, so it's impossible not to mention the obvious contrast between the silliness inherent to the band's name and its song titles to its darkly gorgeous and tense music. Little Joe Gould (taken from an e.e. cummings poem) is a quintet from […]

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Shiner Lula Divinia Desoto By: Eric Greenwood Man, just as I'm quickly becoming a borderline obsessive Shiner fan the band decides to call it quits. Isn't that always how it works out, though? Discovering The Egg this past summer was one of the most exciting musical obsessions I've had in years. Now, I'm slowly combing […]

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Spoon Kill The Moonlight Merge By: Eric Greenwood This Austin quartet channels its wellspring of melody and angst into such perfect pop songs that it sounds like a brand new art form. I kid you not. Kill The Moonlight is a scaled-back rock record, wherein each song is a skeleton, but Spoon makes every second […]

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Sleater-Kinney One Beat Kill Rock Stars By: Eric Greenwood It isn't broken and Sleater-Kinney doesn't try to fix anything on its sixth album for Kill Rock Stars, which is good news on the one hand, but I wonder on how many more albums the band can churn out music cut from such familiar cloth. Label-mates […]

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Beth Orton Daybreaker Heavenly/Astralwerks By: Eric Greenwood Beth Orton has one of those rare voices that just educes sadness no matter what it's actually saying. It's her best weapon by far, especially since she proves on her third solo album that her songwriting chops could use some overhauling. Daybreaker begins promisingly enough, though, with the […]

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