Demob Happy

Kentucky fried pysch-country
8.5/10
Over four albums My Morning Jacket have fashioned a sound that embraces widescreen emotionalism with rootsy Americana, pyschedelia and alt-country. ‘Z‘ sees My Morning Jacket broaden their influences while retaining the unifying use of reverb that makes all the songs sound unmistakably them now matter how far they stray from the [...]

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Lost classic but will they make another?
8/10
I would be tempted to describe this album as a ‘lost classic’ since it started as a minor independent release by two college roommates in 2003 and has steadily developed a cult following. People will continue to look back to this album while one half of Department of Eagles, [...]

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Brit Daniel’s Mathematical Mind
8/10
Spoon are a singular American band at once willfully experimental and tightly committed to pop and rock traditions. Their sound is bluesy and angular, but has little in common with the current renaissance of post-punk and new wave. It could be more closely identified with The Beatles, of which there are some [...]

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His lady story
8/10
Antony is an entirely singular voice, and if you aren’t the type who likes to have their expectations challenged then this isn’t the record for you. Somewhere between soul music and tortured folk, Antony is a troubled troubador to rank with the greatest. An androgynous cabaret singer and pianist, he sings largely [...]

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Ooh Yoshimi!
9/10
What a fantastic discovery. It is easy to see why the Flaming Lips should dedicate a whole album to Yoshimi P-We, one half of Japanese space rockers The Boredoms and ringleader of OOIOO. What they share with the Lips is a wonderous innocence and awe-struck playfulness, creating experimental music that is neither pretentious or [...]

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Animal feelings
7/10
This should have been the Collective’s crowning moment. The return of the full ‘line-up’ so soon after last year’s Avey Tare and Panda Bear-orchestrated masterpiece ‘Sung Tongs’ heralded great things, and many early reviews agreed. I’m not so convinced. There are moments on this record where they genuinely seem to push the boundaries of [...]

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Monkey business
8.5/10
Demon Days improves massively from the Gorillaz debut with an album chock full of memorable, innovative pop, garnished with effervescent production. If anything, the cartoon imagery (or you could call it marketing) sticks less easily to this album, with moments of folksy downbeat like ‘Every Planet we Reach is Dead’ sounding like an outtake [...]

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Deconstructed disco
7/10
One of the main men (alongside James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy) behind DFA and former member of Six-Finger Satellite, Juan Maclean’s debut is damaged electro with a dark heart. For all its inferences to robotic disco, this is not a Daft Punk album (despite the similarity in name to that band’s latest: Human After [...]

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Shock waves
7/10
Minotaur Shock’s second full-length will surely raise his reputation to the level of some of his more overrated peers, namely Four Tet and Manitoba, both of whom seem to have been unjustly hogging the electronica limelight for the last couple of years. ‘Maritime’ take a naval theme as its core imagery but despite a [...]

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Never say never again
7/10
I was a bit wary of this latest album from the New York-based collective due to reports of cheesy female vocals being added into the mix. In fact, this album is a distinct and largely successful departure from the STREET DAD template, stripping away the post-rock inflections in favour of ESG-vocals and [...]

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