Author: Z Staehling

Black Country, New Road – For the first time

By gum, we’ve got ourselves a scene. Sure, it’s been a scene for a couple years now, but I’m sure there’s a scene in Topeka that’s gone just as long if not longer. This scene’s gotten too big for its britches, and it’s hardly a scene anymore, it’s a country. When it cries for independence,… Continue reading Black Country, New Road – For the first time

Ron Gallo – Peacemeal

Ron Gallo started off dismissing it all (2017’s Heavy Meta), then he began to question it all (2018’s Stardust Birthday Party), now he seems to understand that the more you know the less you understand, and from there it’s about how content you are with such a bombshell. This year’s Peacemeal is Ron Gallo beginning… Continue reading Ron Gallo – Peacemeal

Prison Pit

Prison Pit: The Complete Collection By Johnny Ryan [Fantagraphics] Welcome to the wasteland, fuck face. It’s a barren scape conveniently filled with grievous characters that pop into foul play. Vignettes of a knee pad crusader tearing ass through the pit and pissing on the remains. The violence is uncanny, like visions of a road raged… Continue reading Prison Pit

Ennio Morricone – Morricone Segreto

Ennio Morricone, the flying spaghetti monster responsible for some of the most memorable soundtracks of all time, is newly survived by a compilation of his truest creative works in Morricone Segreto. Morricone is such a big film scorer and composer that his works break into the mainstream, and someone who simply wears Nikes or drinks Modelo… Continue reading Ennio Morricone – Morricone Segreto

Endless Digital Birthdays – Becoming a Body

I think there’s a neighborhood or damp-in-the-night cobble street in the UK that cranks out clay schizophrenic models that mold and shape into Escher appropriations by Dali. The monstrous “it” blobs seething through closed storefronts while Jekyll and Hyde scream for their lives. The subterranean workshop makes these models with Talking Heads records and sheet… Continue reading Endless Digital Birthdays – Becoming a Body

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – K.G.

I know I came here to do something. There must’ve been some good reason for me to draw all over this eggshell page with intricate English mosaic, or else what am I doing? Am I losing my mind? My touch? If I’m not here for any good reason, or any reason at all for that… Continue reading King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – K.G.

Bent Arcana – Bent Arcana

One finds it very hard to not treat the Bent Arcana LP with kid gloves, as most media ear worms aren’t herbivorous. They see the name “John Dwyer” and they give it one blurry thumb up. This is because they just don’t understand it but are afraid to say otherwise. I don’t completely understand the… Continue reading Bent Arcana – Bent Arcana

Osees – Protean Threat

John Dwyer, extraordinaire-extraordinaire, delivers the first real album from the latest psych-O incarnate: Osees (drop the “H” you dust sucker!) What was previously long and lysergic-dipped jazz ooze (2019’s Face Stabber) is now quick pelts of ice-punk burst. As in the proverbial “WE,” we call it: Protean Threat. WE just got word back from the Nationale Garde,… Continue reading Osees – Protean Threat

The Lemon Twigs – Songs for the General Public

The Lemon Twigs give us their tired, their poor, Their huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of their teeming shore. Let me start off by saying I love The Lemon Twigs, which is why I hold them to a higher standard than most other bands. I saw them play with a five-piece… Continue reading The Lemon Twigs – Songs for the General Public

Lightning Orchestra – Source and Deliver

Gunshot! Gunshot! Nanoo, Nanoo. What it is? Hip and Heavy, the number one contender for Best Boogie 2020: Jump back and dig this scene man. This here’s the skinny, the lowdown. I was beatin’ the drag down Cheshire Bridge, you know, the row with all the honeys on it? WHORES man, Ho Stroll ‘76. Now don’t… Continue reading Lightning Orchestra – Source and Deliver

My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall II

Jim James is now Randy Newman. Do with that information what you will. After all, it’s my word that gets printed over yours. I can write bleep blop bloop bleep fuck fuck fuck, it’ll get printed in pretty onyx ink and you can spend the better part of a day wondering what I meant by… Continue reading My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall II

Mini Skirt – Casino

I believe punk has found a rightful home in the Land Down Under. It took us long enough. But everything about that floating penal rock calls for punk music. It’s hot, it’s dry (and still savage). The poison still flows beneath the ground there, something I can’t say about many other places. Where punk all began… Continue reading Mini Skirt – Casino

James Swanberg – The One and Only

James Swanberg is your weird uncle. He has been a loyal servant to the DIY Chicago scene for as long as I can remember. While he’s rarely been under the spotlight, James has been consistently intricate to the development of the community, operating from just behind the curtain with his rapid and prolific song-a-day campaign… Continue reading James Swanberg – The One and Only

Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways

If Homer were pushed into a space vacuum by time bandits and landed in the year 2020, Rough and Rowdy Ways would be his favorite album. Because when you’re great, you settle for nothing less than epic. I’m not here to provide historical analysis to Dylan’s venomous prose. If you want a pair of glasses… Continue reading Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways

Crywank – Fist Me ‘Til Your Hand Comes Out My Mouth

A last hoorah if there ever was one. Crywank are James Clayton and Dan Watson, two anti-folk mad hatters from Manchester. Being self-managed and having virtually no coverage, they’ve made DIY ripples around the world with their sound. They decided sometime last year that they would break up after one last world tour. Said tour… Continue reading Crywank – Fist Me ‘Til Your Hand Comes Out My Mouth

Rookie – Rookie

Good guy rock and rollers Rookie release a long-awaited debut in unsure times, more treaded waters of brackish stature for a group who just jumped the gun. Is this the true death of a salesman? Lawdy I hope not. Rookie was just getting started. The Chicago outfit rides the same tides as greats like Twin… Continue reading Rookie – Rookie

Caroline Rose – Superstar

On her fourth album, Superstar, Caroline Rose choreographs a glitzy rise-and-fall scenario for a symbiotic alter ego. The record plays with the idea of it all, stardom and its catches, but it doesn’t get its feelings hurt; it’s got a chip on its shoulder and a tongue in its cheek. For that reason, it’s a… Continue reading Caroline Rose – Superstar

The Chats – High Risk Behaviour

Australia, world superpower in all things garage and punk, gave us The Chats, a mullet sportin’ Foster’s lager PSA, and they gave us High Risk Behaviour, a shotgun slap of punk ooze just in time for the coming jean shorts season. This new wave of Aussie punk has taken the same measures that their British… Continue reading The Chats – High Risk Behaviour

The Strokes – The New Abnormal

SHA-11

The Strokes don’t wanna be your hero. They’re too nice to tell you this, but your poster on the wall doesn’t get them off. Maybe it used to, somewhere towards the beginning. The voice of someone’s generation, be it maybe just a blip in time, The Strokes seized that day nonetheless. They had the Big… Continue reading The Strokes – The New Abnormal

Viagra Boys – Common Sense

Sweden’s Viagra Boys are an undeniably cool outfit that float authentic punk into the downstream. The live shows are sporadic, frantic, sweaty, and quite literally puke-ridden, as frontman Sebastian Murphy tends to get choked up during a song or two. He releases the bile kraken onto the stage then goes back to whatever he was… Continue reading Viagra Boys – Common Sense

ALA.NI – ACCA

ALA.NI brings starlet presence to misconceived miscellanies in her sophomore album ACCA, resulting in aural sensation that keeps you well fed. After proving her worth with the suave, tin-can radio approach on her 2017 debut, You & I, this time around she has an all new spunk that makes ACCA sound totally fresh and even… Continue reading ALA.NI – ACCA