Review: Kacey Musgraves – Pageant Material

Kacey Musgraves - Pageant Material
Craig Manning

Country music is ripe for a civil war.

Over the course of the last few years, Nashville has segmented into two very distinct groups. On one side of the industry, there are the people who are willing to play the game, to sacrifice the classic core of the country music genre—ostensibly, deep and unusual storytelling—in order to sell records. This group is where you will find the “bro country” collective, “artists” like Luke Bryan, the Florida Georgia Line, Blake Shelton, Toby Keith, Billy Currington, Darius Rucker, Jason Aldean, and pretty much every male singer on country radio. These guys write songs (or often, accept songs from other writers) that extoll the virtues of drinking, driving trucks, and objectifying women. Said songs are usually hollow, derivative, and overproduced, but boy, do they sell.

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Review: All Time Low – Future Hearts

All Time Low - Future Hearts
AbsolutePunk

Properly appreciating All Time Low’s Future Hearts requires a bit of background education. While the Baltimore quartet’s newest effort is impressive in its own right as a complete and well-rounded pop record, the gravity of All Time Low’s current success, in songwriting and in relativity, weighs more when it’s put in context.

Put simply, the argument can be made that All Time Low shouldn’t be in this position; they shouldn’t be releasing Future Hearts at all, and certainly not to this much fanfare. The band didn’t just face a major crossroads after the release of its 2011 major label debut Dirty Work, but a question of whether they should still exist.

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Anti-Flag – “Fabled World” (Single Premiere)

Anti-Flag
Alex DiVincenzo

Anti-Flag are now ten albums into their career, but there’s no shortage of ire from the current social and political climate to fuel the punk iconoclasts. This is made a evident by the first single, “Fabled World,” for which you can watch the new video in the replies. The aggressive political punk anthem appears on American Spring, which drops on May 26th via Spinefarm Records.

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Review: Death Cab For Cutie – Kintsugi

Death Cab For Cutie - Kintsugi
Ryan Gardner

The word ‘Kintsugi’ means a “style of art where they take fractured, broken ceramics and put them back together with very obvious, real gold. It’s making the repair of an object a visual part of its history.”

It has understandably been a hard four years for Death Cab For Cutie since Codes & Keys came out. First, Ben Gibbard’s divorce makes for a departure from the newfound love that existed in songs like “Stay Young, Go Dancing” on Codes. Second, guitarist and founding member – and perhaps most importantly long-time producer – Chris Walla decided to leave the band, with this being his final album. The result of these situations is Kintsugi. 

Entirely true to its name, the album expresses the void felt by Gibbard – the need to fix (or fill) something that is broken, to find something that is missing. The opening “No Room In Frame” begins with music that feels desolate and incomplete before Gibbard solemnly admits, “I don’t know where to begin.” The eerie music carries on, as the choppy guitars and drums add weight to the heartbreak of the line “And I guess it’s not a failure we could help / And we’ll both go on to get lonely with someone else.” The repetition of “with someone else” adds another blow to the gut, really letting the sheer desolation of the song sink in. One track in and we already have the fractured heartbreak that resonates throughout Kintsugi, just as the name implies.

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Review: Modest Mouse – Strangers to Ourselves

Modest Mouse - Strangers to Ourselves
Craig Manning

”I’m listening to a new Modest Mouse album.”

For a very long time, that seemed like a sentence no one would ever be able to utter honestly. As the years wound past following 2007’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank—a record that dropped when I was 16 years old—the same pattern repeated over and over again. First, the band would make some comment about writing songs or heading into the studio; then, fans would throw Modest Mouse on their most anticipated lists, saying things like “IT’S GOING TO BE THIS YEAR!!!” And then, inevitably, December would come to a close without any word about a new record. Soon enough, we’d all start the vicious cycle all over again.

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Review: Mat Kearney – Just Kids

Mat Kearney - Just Kids
Gregory Robson

In a little over a decade Mat Kearney has built a career (and life) most would envy. He’s sold over a million albums, has had a half dozen singles, traveled the world, married a model and continues to inspire his countless fans. Just Kids, the fifth album from the Nashville-based singer-songwriter is arguably his most personal and honest record, but it is far from his best. For those who like a record to be one in which the artist reveals a lot of himself, then there will be plenty to love about Just Kids. Moreover, those who enjoy Kearney’s spoken-word-cum-hip-hop vocal stylings found on Bullet and Nothing Left to Lose, will also find plenty to relish in. But neither of those things makes an album and for its numerous charms, Just Kids still falls way short. For starters, the album’s sonic veneers veers heavily towards commercialism and accessibility and maybe that’s viable to some, but at this point in his career he should be crafting albums that are daring, innovative, original and challenging. Just Kids is neither of those things. 

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Interview: Butch Walker

Butch Walker
Craig Manning

Last week, I got a chance to chat extensively with a personal hero of mine, Butch Walker. We talked about Butch’s new album, Afraid of Ghosts, including how the recent loss of his father inspired a new direction for his music, why he decided to have Ryan Adams produce the disc, and why his trademark sarcasm and upbeat songwriting is nowhere to be found. We also touched upon Walker’s back catalog, the woeful reasons why no one should be expecting to find Letters on vinyl anytime soon, whether or not The Black Widows will be making music again in the future, and why Butch’s protege Jake Sinclair took over most of the production duties on the new Fall Out Boy LP.

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Tom DeLonge Leaves (or Doesn’t Leave) Blink-182; We Don’t Know

Blink-182
Jason Tate

Tom DeLonge has left Blink-182 “indefinitely.”

Matt Skiba of the Alkaline Trio will join Blink-182 in replacement of Tom DeLonge at the 8th annual Musink Music and Tattoo Festival. “We were all set to play this festival and record a new album and Tom kept putting it off without reason. A week before we were scheduled to go in to the studio we got an email from his manager explaining that he didn’t want to participate in any Blink-182 projects indefinitely, but would rather work on his other non-musical endeavors.” Travis Barker and Mark Hoppus plan to honor all Blink-182 commitments including the Musink Festival and are excited to have singer/guitarist Matt Skiba join them for this project. “No hard feelings, but the show must go on for our fans.” Additionally, Skiba will continue to make new music and tour with the Alkaline Trio.

UPDATE

Tom Delonge has made the following post on Facebook:

To all the fans, I never quit the band. I actually was on a phone call about a blink 182 event for New York City at the time all these weird press releases started coming in… Apparently those releases were ‘sanctioned’ from the band. Are we dysfunctional- yes. But, Christ….. ‪#‎Awkward‬ ‪#‎BabyBackRibs‬

UPDATE

We have received the following statement from Tom DeLonge’s publicist.

Contrary to reports, Tom DeLonge has not left Blink 182. “I never quit the band,” he says. “Actually, I was on the phone discussing a possible Blink-182 event in New York City when I heard the ‘news.’ The ONLY truth here is that I have commitments that limit my availability this year. I love Blink-182 and I’m not leaving.”

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Recommendation: Logitech UE Mini-Boom

Logitech UE Mini-Boom
Jason Tate

For Christmas I got a few Amazon gift cards, and because these things apparently just burn a hole in my mind — I decided to buy myself a couple presents with them.

One of those was the Logitech UE Mini-Boom.

The problem I was trying to solve was how to give myself a very easy way to listen to podcasts while in the shower / getting ready in the bathroom. The rest of my place has speakers where I can be anywhere and hear them with clarity; however, the bathroom (especially with the shower running) drowns out almost all of the sound. So, I wanted something I could easily listen to while in the shower or shaving. And how’s this device solve that problem? With flying colors.

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Recommended Blog Reading

Jason Tate

motifsinthecity asked:

You’ve mentioned several websites that have become staples in my morning Feedly reading. I was wondering if you had plans for a “Recommendation Post” like your technology one—a post that culls together a list of your essential morning reading for news on tech, art, pop-culture, etc. Personally, I’d find something like that invaluable.

Thanks for the compliment! Here’s a rundown of websites and authors I read every day. I use ReadKit as my RSS reader on the Mac and iOS.

I’ll try and keep this updated when new things get added into my daily routine.

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