Reviews

The manner in which Sean MacLeod writes his songs is so wonderfully intimate, and this song, Romeo, is an excellent example of it. Based on his extensive musical background, those early days with the legendary Dublin-based Cisco, and his experience with the former producer of U2, Paul Barrett, MacLeod has...

Once a metal band has gone on a creative hiatus and returns to swinging, you can generally tell both whether they have been sharpening their vision or simply biding their time. Gutlock evidently opted to the former. Warden’s Grip was written with the kind of focused aggression that only artists...

Micki XO has hit something that we can all relate to with Power Outage- that particular brand of being exhausted as you are, overloaded with media and loving everything that is going on in the world and somehow still expected to show up and work. The genius of this song...

It is somehow paradoxical and beautiful that Katie Belle created a song about bad dreams, when she makes the tiresome fact of insomnia turn into an irresistible escape into the realms of electro-pop. Here, the Atlanta-based artist has created something special; a song that recognizes the restless, twisting-and-turning nights that...

This is hypnotic about music that is not in a hurry and Danish dark-pop project TRALALAS knows that. The second single by Morten Alsinger, the songwriter of the upcoming debut album, is a three and a half minute meditation on how flexible emotions are, how loss and gain, friendship and...

Some songs are time capsules. Other ones are warnings that continue to prove themselves true. The Fools by Social Gravy belongs to the latter category, initially written before a presidential election and later republished several years later due to the fact that, as the Los Angeles duo themselves says, the...

There is the protest songs and then there is the manifesto-in-music. The You Don’t Decide by Bevin squarely belongs to the second category, being a fearless statement of physical independence that does not demand permission or dilute its edges to make it popular with the general audience. It is all...

There are those albums that are based on vanity. Others are lifelines. The Agoraphobia Files by Paul Gill under the pseudonym Purbeck Temple is unquestionably the latter, a thirteen-track testament in defense of patience that emerged out of trauma and was moulded by years of loneliness, recovery and unassailable resolution....

The fact that you hear operatic singing on techno beats that are hitting hard is something truly lovely, and Carlos Ucedda makes the collision of these two elements so natural and needed. Dose of Love is a genre bending announcement by an artist who has continuously engaged with music, showcasing...

At some point in all the unhealthy relationships, there comes a time when the mask becomes unveiled and you are exposed to all inside the costume. Released under her Daph Veil project, Paula Laubach describes that moment in her piece, Bloodsucker, doesn’t simply describe it, but instead soundtracks the whole...

Music is magic, there is a certain type of restlessness and meditation that they have perfectly caught on The House Flies on Sweet Foxhound. It is not only the first single they have released since their popular Mannequin Deposit, but the shadows are darker and the lines even sharper. The...

Bottle service and exclusivity do not always accompany all VIP experiences. Other times they are accompanied by mandatory attendance and wake-up calls. The recent single of Exzenya, V.I.P., is a brilliant play on words, turning the acronym to Victims Impact Panel, the program of Mothers Against Drunk Driving that the...

It is somehow disarming when a bluesy rock artist and an exploration of betrayal turns into a spiritual vulnerability and makes it sound this natural. The first Christian song written by Fiona Amaka, Honesty (Psalm 139), is an accomplishment in itself in terms of its authenticity and accessibility, and that...

It is something really touching how the artist does not sing of peace, but every risk in order to make the peace during the active war. Dream of Peace by Kelsie Kimberlin is not a cozy hymn that was recited in a safe place. It is shot in Kyiv when...

Twenty-four songs is a declaration. It is not just an album, but a universe, a mood board, thesis on what pop can be when an artist does not want to cut themselves down to the industry standard. SHIFT Amara Fe does not merely build on her first album Reborn, but...

Few bands would dare to incorporate Irish economic history, word play, and progressive rock into one single song–but Transgalactica is not most bands. This father-son Krakow, Polish, duo has made something truly unique with Joyce of the Market, a song, both intellectually ambitious and musically fascinating. The very title of...

Some artists chase trends. Others build time machines. The Retrodelic EP by Luke Tangerine does so, with five straight tracks of nothing short of mirrorball euphoria and less nostalgia and more of rediscovery. It is the response of the golden age of disco and funk filtered through the modern production...

It is very personal when an artist relies on music as a therapy and that is what Dale or Milan-based banker-turned-musician does with his first album Vertigo. The result of the highly stressful and self-aware time, this set of 80s inspired synth-pop songs is a record of one man attempting...

It is disturbing to bring to light the darkness behind a song everybody knows well. The7thGatekeeper does just that with You Are My Sunshine by turning a lullaby into something nostalgic into something raw, uncomfortable and brutally honest. This version, which was recorded in what the artist refers to as...

Some songs tell stories. Others drag you into them and you are left dazed and rattled. Captivity does the latter–and is not disposed to yield kindly. The song creates the mood of deep discomfort even at the very beginning. Exzenya reinvents a folk refrain of the old with a vocal...