Posts tagged with "Domino"

THE PASTELS

THE PASTELS Slow Summits [Domino] Though they haven’t released an official album in 16 years, the Pastels haven’t kept silent. A film soundtrack in 2003 and collaboration with the Japanese band Tenniscoats in 2009 helped the band to evolve its sound, as has a continuously revolving line-up. With Slow Summits, the Pastels’ move from shambolic rock to subdued, off-kilter pop seems complete. Their sound has changed shape, and the thinned-out guitars... 

THE THERMALS

THE THERMALS Signed and Sealed in Blood [Domino] The sixth album from this Portland pop-punk trio sees a return to the kinds of scratchy vocals and trebly guitar strains heard in its earlier work. Freshly signed to Saddle Creek, the band wastes little time getting down to business. “Born to Kill” opens with Hutch Harris simultaneously striking his first guitar note and declaring, “I was born to kill / I was made to slay / unafraid to spill blood... 

DROPKICK MURPHYS

DROPKICK MURPHYS Signed and Sealed in Blood [Domino] If the title of Dropkick’s last album, Going Out in Style, hinted that the Boston Celtic-punk band’s career was over, this one’s rousing opener, “The Boys Are Back,” sets the record straight. It’s a foot-stomping rallying cry, cut with whirring bagpipes. Whereas Out in Style centered on a fictional character, Signed and Sealed finds the septet telling personal tales wrapped in frenzied... 

CLINIC

CLINIC Free Reign [Domino] On their self-produced seventh album, these Leeds art-rockers trade intensity for laser-like focus. Something intangible pushes the songs forward, despite seemingly loose constructions. While Free Reign marks the return of Clinic’s trademark fuzzy guitars—lacking on their previous album, the mostly acoustic Bubblegum—the sound is less bristly than on earlier efforts. It’s also more psychedelic, with vintage organs... 

THE KILLS

THE KILLS Blood Pressures [Domino] After releasing their third album together, 2008’s Midnight Boom, Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince took a break from the Kills and found new foils for their outsized personalities. Mosshart spent the hiatus singing for Jack White’s voodoo-punk supergroup the Dead Weather, while Hince found himself a U.K. tabloid fixture by getting engaged to supermodel Kate Moss. While their lives have changed, the duo’s musical... 

SONS AND DAUGHTERS

SONS AND DAUGHTERS Mirror Mirror [Domino] Sons and Daughters’ 2008 album, The Gift, saw the Glasgow-based band toughen up the folk-goth sound first unfurled on their 2005 debut. Mirror Mirror finds the group ratcheting up the aural dynamics—and the gloom factor—even further. Adding dance rhythms and electronica to the mix (as well as more vocals from guitarist Scott Paterson, flanking frontwoman Adele Bethel), the album comes off as an unlikely... 

FOUR TET + There Is Love in You

FOUR TET There Is Love in You [Domino] Even those who aren’t fans of electronic music would find it difficult not to be impressed by Kieran Hebden’s resume. A former member of the U.K. post-rock band Fridge, Hebden embarked on a solo career a decade ago under the moniker Four Tet, and since then has recorded four albums, opened for Radiohead and provided remixes for an eclectic group of artists that includes everyone from Bloc Party to Black... 

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE + Fall Be Kind

Fall Be Kind The members of Animal Collective started 2009 with the first album of the year worth your buck (Merriweather Post Pavilion) and ended it with an EP that proves once again they’re one mighty trippy bunch. Like the rest of the Brooklyn band’s best work, Fall Be Kind lets us fantasize about the music Brian Wilson might have made in the late 1960s and beyond if the drugs he favored had been even harder and Mike Love’s prohibitively... 
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