Artist: Thinking Plague

Album: Decline and Fall

Thinking Plague are an extremely skillful band of singer (Elaine di Falco), guitar (Mike Johnson), bass (Dave Willey), keyboard and drums (both Kimara Sajn), and sax/ flute/ clarinets (Mark Harris). Oddly for a rock band, they almost entirely avoid distortion, even for bass and guitar. It’s easier for me to give you adjectives about their album Decline and Fall than it is to assure you they’re compliments. “Composed”, in both the […]

Artist: Regina Spektor

Album: What We Saw from the Cheap Seats

Regina Spektor plays piano reasonably well, and has a breathy but flexible singing voice fond of chirps, coos, swoops, creative weird mouth noises, and really awkward melisma (switching notes mid-syllable). My family and I adore her, and she’s had chart success, mainly with Fidelity from 2006’s wonderful Begin to Hope, but I can imagine why her songs could drive someone batty. Her strengths are childlike, […]