Category: Music Review

Damn near every rapper has aspirations of “changing the game,” selling out arenas, and dominating hip-hop, but Chance the Rapper has already done that and then some. What could I possibly write about the three-time Grammy winner that hasn’t already been written? What has Chance done that hasn’t gone viral? Even his supposed failures—the canceled […]

Smushie main man Austin Koenigstein (also half of Chicago duo Berta Bigtoe) plays psych-leaning indie rock whose relaxed, sun-dappled melodies will convince you he’s figured out the secret to an unbothered life. Radiant keys, limber bass, loose and understated guitars, and cool, in-the-pocket drums float through Smushie’s latest album, June’s self-released Doofus Casanova, and Koenigstein […]

London psychedelic chamber-pop outfit the Clientele have been making their hushed, literate songs for 32 years, evoking peers such as the Go-Betweens, the Left Banke, and Felt while maintaining their own baroque and brainy mystique. Earlier this year, they released an ambitious double LP, I Am Not There Anymore (Merge), which lead singer and guitarist […]

When Something Is Waiting formed in 2016, the band consisted of five dudes whose stacked resumés included stints in several Chicago heavy favorites, and on their first few releases they focused on big, mean, chaos-bringing noise rock a la Unsane. Over the past few years, though, they’ve charted a new direction, trading in nihilistic bludgeoning […]

In Nina Corcoran’s recent Pitchfork Rising profile of Chicago postpunk trio Lifeguard, guitarist-vocalist Kai Slater described what draws together the teenagers in their Hallogallo scene. “It feels like everyone involved is really desperate to make music,” Slater said, “like it’s not a choice, but their natural role.” This sense of necessity invigorates the high-wire tension […]

In the Bandcamp credits of their 2022 full-length debut, Psychokinetic Love Songs (Lonely Ghost), Montana indie-emo band Hey, ILY snuck in what looks like a mission statement. Lead guitarist Trevin Baker and front man Caleb Haynes mention their instruments, of course, but also their “average” or “above average” skill at Nintendo’s Smash Bros.—add in the […]

Drummer Andrew Cyrille (born 1939) and double bassist Reggie Workman (born 1937) have worked with many of the most profoundly influential figures in post-1950 jazz; a short list of artists with whom one or both musicians have recorded includes Art Blakey, Alice and John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Cecil Taylor, Marion Brown, Peter Brötzmann, Mal Waldron, […]

Replicant are a Chicago three-piece who make dark, sleek synth-pop that could score a blockbuster dystopian epic as easily as it could provide a scuzzy, sensual soundtrack for an all-night subterranean club. The group’s members—brothers Jordan and Justin DeLay and longtime friend Garrett Vernon—moved here separately from Michigan and formed Replicant in 2012, and they’ve […]

When the Gories emerged in Detroit in 1986, on the tail end of the decade’s garage-rock revival, they seemed to have learned from every mistake made by other bands. They produced a sort of platonic ideal of the form: wild, messy, uninhibited, and fortified with the survival instincts of an alley cat. The trio’s swagger […]

On most of her records, Cindy Lee provides every note of her songs. Her self-released fifth album, 2020’s What’s Tonight to Eternity? (my favorite so far), includes her brother Andrew Flegel on drums, but her presence remains front and center: She’s the frazzled, anguished guitar wails that fade to a whimper at the end of […]

Tropa Magica’s psychedelic cumbia contains some of the happiest, most upbeat grooves I’ve heard in years. The four-piece emerged from East Los Angeles’s magical musical cauldron in 2017, evolving out of a band called Thee Commons, who combined cumbia with elements of metal and surf rock. The brothers behind Tropa Magica, guitarist and vocalist David […]

A few years back, an emerging metal trio named Voice of Baceprot became an Internet sensation with videos of themselves covering the likes of Slipknot and Rage Against the Machine. They went viral less for their choice of tunes and more for who and where they were—vocalist and guitarist Firda Marsya Kurnia, bassist Widi Rahmawati, […]

Until this summer, I’d have struggled to think of a trio of rising high school sophomores who’d landed a slot at West Fest just a few months after forming their band—but then Chicago postpunks Uniflora went ahead and did it. Drummer Ruby O’Brien and bassist Theo Williams have been friends since kindergarten, and guitarist-vocalist Quinn […]

Xylouris White’s fifth and latest LP, April’s The Forest in Me (Drag City), stands apart from everything else in the duo’s discography. Cretan folk musician George Xylouris—who contributes laouto (lute), lyra (upright fiddle), and vocals—and Australian MVP (most valuable percussionist) Jim White have typically recorded music that feels a lot like their live performances. Their […]