I done wrote about Modern Skirts, The Selmanaires and Bon Iver

Some of my writing appeared around the internets this past week, and I thought you lovely FOA readers might be interested.

First, I reviewed the Modern Skirts' new record All Of Us In Our Night for Leila over at Atlanta Music Guide. AMG is a site I didn't know much about until Leila took the reigns, but now I see that it's got some great content! Be sure to check it out regularly!

Here be the review:



Modern Skirts - All Of Us In Our Night

Athens, Ga.’s Modern Skirts will never not make pop music, no matter how hard they try. Their sophomore full-length, entitled All Of Us In Our Night, is just that — albeit an exercise in pop with a good bit of the experimental and the weird seeped in. The piano-driven, shimmering tunes found on the band’s 2005 debut Catalogue of Generous Men have given way to bizarre harmonic choices and sudden key shifts on this self-released follow-up. The whole record — intentionally, according to the band — sounds considerably further off-kilter, deliberately moving away from the easy-to-listen-to, easy-to-hum numbers on Catalogue...[Read more]



Also for AMG, this week I talked to the illustrious Tommy Chung of ATL's The Selmanaires about the direction the band's been going of late. Here's that:



Q&A with The Selmanaires’ Tommy Chung

With two full-length records and a handful of 7-inch singles under their collective belts,The Selmanaires just keep on churning out great Atlanta music. In the wake of the release of their second LP last year, the foursome is undergoing a bit of a re-thinking before heading into more shows (the first of which is this Saturday, January 31 at The EARL with The Features and Carnivore) and new releases for the coming year. We snagged bassist Tommy Chung at work to talk about the band’s new direction, their side projects and what exactly “celestial primitive” means. ...[Read more]



And finally, my review of Bon Iver's Blood Bank EP showed up on PasteMagazine.com the other day. Have a look:



Bon Iver
Blood Bank EP
[Jagjaguwar]

Winter songwriter leaves seasonal trappings behind

"Blood Bank" is, well, electric. Meaning that the opening track of Bon Iver's EP of the same name isn't, you know, acoustic. While usually an unremarkable descriptor for rock music, here it marks a notable departure for a songwriter whose sophomore release just can't be listened to without comparison to its predecessor, For Emma, Forever Ago. The song is a narrative: it speaks in Justin Vernon's usual nostalgic language, this time of first meetings and of identity reduced to the contents of plastic bags... [Read more]