Reviews

Artist: Jonny Polonsky

Album: Intergalactic Messenger of Divine Light and Love

Can you imagine a halfway point between the Beatles’ Rubber Soul and Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream? If so, you have a good musical imagination: well done! Also, you may have imagined something close to Jonny Polonsky’s Intergalactic Messenger of Divine Light and Love. I mean the guitar tones (weighted a bit towards the Pumpkins’ thick-textured grandiosity, especially the fierce solos), the song structures (leaning nearer the […]

Artist: Jukebox the Ghost

Album: Safe Travels

Jukebox the Ghost are a power-pop band. By this I mean they’re energetic; they sing about normal pop topics (loneliness, awkward crushes, relationships); their male singer sounds young and basically ordinary but carries tunes well; they play guitar and bass and keyboards and drums; they use clean production; and they rise and fall based on the strength of their melodies. They’re “pop” in the sense that this was an excellent […]

Artist: Squonk Opera

Album: Go!

I discovered Squonk Opera via their 1994 debut Howandever, when I lived in Boston and went to things called “used record stores”. The band was called “Squonk Opera”, so that caught my eye. Its instrumental lineup was vocals; piano/ keyboards; wind synthesizer/ celtic flute/ whistles/ sax; contraption kit/ rototoms; electric bass; tabla/ electric tabla. The players were additionally titled “prima donna”, “kapellmeister”, “impresario”, “glocksonic”, “basso buffo”, and “percussionisto”. First six song titles: […]