The Stills Logic Will Break Your Heart Vice/Atlantic By: Eric Greenwood
The Stills may share the same predictable, post-punk influences as every card-carrying band of hipsters emanating from New York City these days, but they've altered the bedraggled formula somewhat. In the grand scheme of things, catchy maudlin pop has been done countless times over, [...]

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!!! Me And Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story) Ep Touch And Go By: Eric Greenwood
I'd never had much respect for Manchester's Happy Mondays until I saw 24-hour Party People, the film chronicling the rise and fall (and rise?) of legendary Factory Records' owner and creator, Anthony Wilson. [...]

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Enon Hocus-Pocus Touch And Go By: Eric Greenwood
For a band that has built its reputation on charging in unpredictable directions, Enon's third album feels strangely ho-hum and disappointingly underdeveloped. Last year's acclaimed High Society set the bar fairly high for Enon's spastic, schizophrenic pop confections, but Hocus-Pocus never makes good on the promise that [...]

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Murder By Death Who Will Survive And What Will Be Left Of Them? Eyeball By: Eric Greenwood
Not only has the name changed, but the music has, too, for this Bloomington, Indiana quintet. The former Little Joe Gould sounds like a new band on its darkly thematic and stunning sophomore album. Where introspection, elegiac melodies, [...]

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The Rapture Echoes Strummer/Universal By: Eric Greenwood
Despite what you'll invariably read elsewhere, The Rapture's sloppy, clanging post-punk rage is completely hit or miss, and this long-awaited full-length is the definition of anti-climactic. For every badass mind-fuck like "Out Of The Races And Onto The Tracks", there are twice as many unlistenable duds in the [...]

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Swell Whenever You're Ready Beggars Banquet By: Eric Greenwood
Even in its heyday, which is now almost a decade past, Swell was always criminally ignored, except by the French for some inexplicable reason… So, a new Swell album released in 2003 will no doubt be met with similar apathy here in the United States. It's [...]

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Erase Errata At Crystal Palace Troubleman By: Eric Greenwood
Erase Errata has been riding a wave of hype since its debut, Other Animals, allowed crusty white kids that haven't the faintest idea how to dance a chance to take over the floor without shame for their collective lack of rhythm. Erase Errata's [...]

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Araby Your Wate And Fate Curve Of The Earth By: Eric Greenwood
In the fifteen months since I happened to catch Araby opening a show in its hometown of Boston, Massachusetts, its self-released, three-song demo has rarely left my rotation. The quartet's haunting and complex music is nothing short of stunning, but, [...]

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Guyana Punch Line Direkt Aktion Prank By: Eric Greenwood
As evidence of the fact that punk is a meaningless term, take the gulf that separates a band like Guyana Punch Line from, say, any emo band you can think of and try to reconcile any semblance of commonality under the punk umbrella. [...]

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The Life And Times Flat End Of The Earth Ep 54 or 40 or Fight! By: Eric Greenwood
Shiner's sudden, self-inflicted demise at the start of this year confused its loyal fanbase to no end. Why would a band at the height of its powers just willingly let it all die? [...]

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The Blood Brothers Burn, Piano Island, Burn Artist Direct By: Eric Greenwood
The Blood Brothers' spastic, abrasive aggression is an acquired taste to say the least- even for those with a predilection to appreciate insanely frantic hardcore. On Burn, Piano Island, Burn, the Seattle quintet's third album, the band teams up with [...]

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The White Stripes Elephant V2 By: Eric Greenwood
Miraculously untainted by severe over-exposure, The White Stripes return with another blistering set of mock-blues through the eyes of two pasty white-faced Goths from Detroit in candy stripe drag. Musically, Elephant is just as raw and spontaneous as it would have been had no [...]

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The Postal Service Give Up Sub-Pop By: Japanese Correspondent - Patrick Doherty
Now that the synthesis of indie rock and electronic music has become the de facto means of expression for every burgeoning hipster with a penchant for 80's synth-pop and a perfunctory knowledge of the K Records catalogue, it only makes sense [...]

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Radiohead Hail To The Thief Capitol By: Eric Greenwood
I'm sure Thom Yorke's heart is in the right place and all that, but, my God, what is he thinking with that album title? Everyone knows that mixing politics and music is embarrassing, turning the artist into a parody of whatever cause he [...]

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Martin L. Gore Counterfeit2 Mute/Reprise By: Eric Greenwood
As Depeche Mode's sole songwriter for over twenty years, Martin Gore has painted himself into a bleak corner. It's almost as though he's run out of ways to write about drugs or sex or death or betrayal. He released an EP of obscure [...]

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Blur Think Tank Virgin By: Eric Greenwood
When an original member leaves an established band - no matter what the reason - the respectable thing to do is to break up. Too often, though, the band, thinking itself invincible, soldiers on like a staggering amputee, embarrassing itself and its fans with a [...]

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…and You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead The Secret Of Elena's Tomb Interscope By: Eric Greenwood
Since …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead fears nothing in its path, its inherent pretentiousness is so much easier to swallow. That's the thing about pretentiousness- if one can [...]

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Cursive The Ugly Organ Saddle Creek By: Eric Greenwood
If all emo were as good as Cursive's The Ugly Organ, it wouldn't be the embarrassing cliché it is today. Alas, all emo is nowhere near as good as this record is, so it will have to wade through the usual minefield of [...]

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Hot Hot Heat Make Up The Breakdown Sub Pop By: Eric Greenwood
Idiosyncratic rock rarely extends as big a welcome as Hot Hot Heat's first full-length, Make Up The Breakdown…never mind that the band is from Canada. Equally dividing new wave, prog, garage, and all the eccentricities of early XTC and, perhaps [...]

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Peaches The Teaches Of Peaches Kitty-yo By: Eric Greenwood
I could maybe see how this would have been slightly offensive twenty years ago when sex was still cause for alarm in pop music, but having been through Lydia Lunch and Wendy O. Williams on the underground side and Madonna and even Courtney Love [...]

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