pitchforkd

    • Dropped : Consolidated  7.5
    • Consolidated. Anti- establishment heroes, oft- celebrated guardians of human and animal rights, defilers of the capitalistic propaganda machine known as Corporate America, visionaries for an egalitarian future. Unabashed politics, a quality I've always associated with the band since first hearing their scathing album, Play More Music. A substantial interim has passed, and not having followed the band's progression since, I was very surprised upon listening to Dropped t... [ full review ]
    • Ghost Man on Second : Currituck Co.  5.9
    • Don't know who'll step forward, but indie rock's seafaring history needs to be written. Prologue: Lou Reed, sailor suit/cap, walks the plank of "Heroin"'s "great big clipper ship." That's a backward glancing start, but the bulk of the chapters will involve a Deep Listening of Slint, June of 44, Pinback, et al. providing ample proof that these landlubbers don't really know how to drop anchor or tie knots, but for some reason really dig The Odyssey. More esotericall... [ full review ]
    • Future : Various Artists  5.7
    • Let's face it -- electronic music is not the next big thing. It's already the big thing and the overwhelming amount of compliation discs that are being released proves it. Virgin Records has pretty much got a monopoly on all the really good electronic stuff because they own Caroline Records, an "indie" (it's really just a division of Virgin that appears to be an indie) with a bunch of other smaller labels beneath it. Why's that matter? Oh, only because o... [ full review ]
    • The Alternative Anthology : The Damned  7.5
    • I became acquainted with the quote-unquote-first band of British punk-- first to release a single, tour the U.S., etc.-- in the most decidedly un-punk way possible: selecting the excellent Light at the End of the Tunnel double-album anthology merely to fulfill BMG's exacting requisites. For a 13-year-old with no concept of the intricacies of gouging consumers on shipping charges, the deal was stellar; the Damned, however, were not-- not then, anyway. I didn't get the ridiculously theatrical ... [ full review ]
    • Dear John : Ex-Boyfriends  7.0
    • The Ex-Boyfriends' debut album, Dear John, is a power-pop exploration of lost love-- songs about heartbreak, betrayal, and revenge, delivered so infectiously that you can't help feel like it's a mixed message. The album seems to exist in the cleansing stage of a breakup, when, despite the pain and anger, things might turn out OK after all. Hearts are broken, but before it's all said and done, a boy's going to get the girl, a boy's going to get the boy-- damn it, someo... [ full review ]
    • Buzzle Bee : High Llamas  6.0
    • There are 810 "la-la's" on Buzzle Bee. I know because I, unlike the Palm Beach County Board of Canvassers, counted every last one. A high number to be sure, but one that takes on an even greater and more absurd significance when you consider that half of the tracks on the album are instrumental. Make no mistake about it, friend, that's a lot of fucking la's. But is it too many? The factual and unsubjectivicated answer is, in a word: yes. We're talking roughly a ... [ full review ]
    • Robyn Sings : Robyn Hitchcock  6.5
    • [Excerpts from transcript of Crisis Hotline call, 12:34am, 5/15/02] Operator 1: Sir, what do you mean you're breaking your dishes and beating your kids and you don't know why? Caller: I don't know what it means! Aren't you supposed to help me figure it out? Why the hell else do you exist? Operator 1: Sir, try to calm down. I can hear that you're frustrated. Caller: Of course I'm frustrated! Duh! You would be too! Operator 1: But sir, I di... [ full review ]
    • Joyful Rebellion : K-Os  7.4
    • Too many emerging hip-hop artists build their reputation by slandering the genre's contemporary trends. It's the Catch-22 of an artform built on both evolution and revolt: Each new artist is eventually put in the crosshairs by his or her followers. Toronto-based hip-hop spiritualist K-Os is no different, and on opener "Emcee Murdah" he reminds us that from the start. Unraveling slow spitfire rhymes against a doomsday guitar loop, K-Os complains, "Emcees keep faking/ Hoping ... [ full review ]
    • Under a Billion Suns : Mudhoney  6.1
    • Here's one more thing folks can blame on the Dubya Administration: the political awakening of Mudhoney. That's right, the group that spent nearly 20 years giving the flannel finger to the world is now putting on its best po-face and dropping bon mots like, "I want a world run by giant brains/ Instead of small-minded arrogant fools." That not-so-quotable moment comes from Under a Billion Suns opener "Where Is the Future", a five-minute treatise on the qualitative gulf between 1960s science f... [ full review ]
    • Antidote : Jenny Toomey  8.4
    • Jenny Toomey, indie-rock luminary that she is, has come a long way as both artist and interlocutor since Tsunami's final album, 1997's A Brilliant Mistake. She left her Simple Machines label to begin the Future of Music Coalition, putting herself in the precarious situation of being an devoted artist with no time for art. Somewhere in the midst of these four years was catastrophic love-- a heartbreak so tragic and special it warranted a double-disc. Both her pedigree ... [ full review ]