Record Review: Women - Public Strain

One of the best of 2010!! Women rules, for sure. Or is it "Women rule"...? For sure.

Women
Public Strain
Jagjaguwar

Women’s 2008 self-titled debut is one of my favorite records. As with many loves, however, it's difficult to tell you why, exactly. When I first laid ears on it, I thought it was the prettiest ugly thing, interlocking detuned guitar riffs and swaths of wide-lens noise and all. The music was as warm through all its tearing and wrinkling as I imaged the band’s Canadian home was chilly. It felt three-dimensional, like fingers on a relief map — then like the map had rolled up and was trying to asphyxiate me. I always ended the album’s journey slack-jawed and a little out of breath...[Read more]


[MP3] Women - "Eyesore" (via Jagjaguwar)

Record Review: Bear In Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth: Remixed

Joining the ranks of bands I've written about too many times but can't help myself is Brooklyn's Bear In Heaven. I was able to talk up their re-release of 2009's Beast Rest Forth Mouth (with a remix record) for Tiny Mix Tapes' Delorean blog.

Here it goes:

2009: Bear In Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth: Remixed

Although I recognize the necessity of re-releasing previously self-released records when artists get signed or get big, as someone who’s job it is to give a crap about when exactly an album came out, it can be a little annoying to deal with these discrepancies. Bear In Heaven’s move to re-release their breakthrough record Beast Rest Forth Mouth (like the cardinal directions “East West North South,” geddit?) a little under a year after its original road to acclaim, is an understandable one; the Hometapes label can rake in more cash while the Brooklyn-via-Georgia-and-Alabama band gets to up the quality of the LP they’re selling at merch tables and record stores across the world...[Read more]


Read up on all the other FOA Bear In Heaven content here!

Flagpole Feature: Frightened Rabbit

In which I get to call Scotland from my cell phone in my car on my first day at a new job!



Flagpole feature:

Frightened Rabbit's Winter of Mixed Drinks
Are They Half Empty or Half Full?

Scott Hutchison is probably an optimist. Listening to The Winter of Mixed Drinks, however, his band Frightened Rabbit’s third studio album, sometimes it’s hard to tell...[Read more]