9/2/2023 0 Comments Modest mouse dead end job![]() RATING: 3.5 (out of 5) Luke Bryan Spring Break… Checkin’ Out Enough is enough. A true labour of love, the stripped-down affair spans and celebrates his career without reinventing it, as Avett and Mayfield tenderly render the late balladeer’s bleakly beautiful works with rootsy simplicity and emotional sincerity. As their album title makes clear, singer-songwriters and sometime tourmates Seth Avett and Jessica Lea Mayfield join forces and voices on this full-length tribute to tragic troubadour Smith. RATING: 4 (out of 5) Seth Avett & Jessica Lea Mayfield Seth Avett & Jessica Lea Mayfield Sing Elliott Smith Misery loves company. Reportedly fueled by the passing of several close friends, the Toronto metalcorers’ fifth album is a cathartic outpouring of grief and anger, with primal-scream frontman Liam Cormier raging against the dying of the light as his bandmates support him with furious riffage, powerhouse grooves and muscular sludge every bit as heavy as these songs’ subject matter. NOW HEAR THIS Cancer Bats Searching for Zero Death is brutal. RATING: 4 (out of 5) Mobile users, please click here. ![]() And he’s no more settled on the musical side, colouring his frank self-examinations with a shapeshifting mix of ’60s pop and ’70s art-rock that nods at everyone from The Kinks and Zeppelin to Talking Heads, Iggy and Bowie’s Berlin period and more. No surprise for a breakup album, Barnes is a bundle of raw nerves and emotional indecision, pinballing back and forth from bitterness to forgiveness and grief to optimism (often in the same song). The eccentric frontman’s 13th Of Montreal album - reportedly created during the “golden despondency” of his recent divorce - proves as self-contradictory as its handle. Even when Kevin Barnes is the only one talking. Of Montreal Aureate Gloom There are two sides to every story. On the musical side, it means going with the flow, playing it by ear and ticking all the boxes in his stylistic repertoire, from scrappy indie-rock to acoustic folk-blues to Celtic-tinged fare and Americana jams reminiscent of Dylan and The Band’s Basement Tapes. On the lyrical front, that translates to a slate of nostalgic narratives dealing with life and death, love and loneliness, success and sacrifice, and grasping the difference between being broke and being broken - all delivered with his usual nimble wordplay, grounded narratives and off-the-cuff spontaneity. As its enigmatically acronymic handle hints, the restlessly creative and critically beloved Nova Scotia singer-songwriter’s umpteenth album finds him sifting the ashes of his youth and coming to terms with impending middle age (he’ll be 40 in April). Joel Plaskett The Park Avenue Sobriety Test Everyone’s past determines their present. Armed as always with blackly humourous lyrics (One of many magnificent examples: “God is an Indian and you’re an a**hole / Get on your horse and ride”), his endearingly yelpy pipes and an eclectic music slate that runs the gamut from David Byrne funk and psychedelic country to calliope rock, lilting Caribbean pop and serial killer hip-hop, Brock takes you on a colourful, meandering jaunt through his bizarre worldview and unorthodox craftsmanship. The Portland band’s long-overdue sixth album - the followup to 2007’s lacklustre We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank - captures Brock back at his idiosyncratic and iconoclastic best. Thankfully, he seems to have made good use of his time. ![]() Manage Print Subscription / Tax ReceiptĪLBUMS OF THE WEEK Modest Mouse Strangers to Ourselves No wonder Isaac Brock feels like a stranger: It’s been almost eight years to the day since the singer-guitarist released his last Modest Mouse album. ![]()
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