brian

Artist: Extra Life

Album: Dream Seeds

Musically, Extra Life spent their first two records inventing a style I’d wished would exist for years. On the one hand, the guitar and drums were fierce. In a measured way, heavy enough to make full-throttle speed impossible, just as Sherman tanks can’t outrace cheetahs. But that gives time enough to think, to feint, to surprise (if someone clever and ruthless is driving the tank, you might bet against the cheetah’s […]

Artist: the Verlaines

Album: Untimely Meditations

If you’ve heard of New Zealand’s the Verlaines, it’s probably for their 1980s work. I’m not sure how useful that’ll be for a discussion of their current work (I’m reviewing their excellent 2012 Untimely Meditations but am also a fan of 2008’s Pot Boiler and 2010’s Corporate Moronic). The people who reviewed those early albums for AllMusic talk of them as “complex” and “fastidious” albums aided by “perfectly realized brass, woodwind, and string sections”, which […]