Holy Hell! The Bends Turns 20 The Bends remains phenomenal as its own package of crushing elegance. Part of this mythos comes from the album-to-album transformation. The story’s been told a thousand times, but it’s key to remember that Radiohead was once a struggling one-hit wonder, dismissed as “Nirvana-lite” before 1995. Pablo Honey certainly gets more hate than it deserves, but there was a seismic shift … Read More
Philip Selway: Weatherhouse [xrr rating=3.0/5]It’s hard enough to be the drummer. The blue-collar of the band, always in the background locked down to a stool, often overlooked, if visible at all. But when you’re a drummer and just ahead of the release of your second solo record (following-up a timid first effort) your enigmatic frontman goes and surprises the world and unleashes a … Read More
Holy Hell! Pablo Honey Turns 20 Radiohead themselves have turned their collective back on 1993’s Pablo Honey. Dating back to the outfit’s legendary Glastonbury set of 1997, only three tracks from their debut have been worthy of performing live: “Creep,” “You” and “Lurgee.” During the last five years, an era where the five-piece have grown increasingly experimental, only “Creep” has made an appearance within live sets. … Read More
Atoms For Peace: AMOK [xrr rating=4.0/5]When news broke back in 2009 that Thom Yorke was collaborating with virtuoso bassist Flea, what music fan couldn’t at once be tantalized and confounded? An avant-garde Briton and a funky Californian? Yet after nearly five years of gestating, the resulting Atoms for Peace has delivered their first cerebral brainchild, a trance-inducing rock and electronica synergy in which Yorke, … Read More
Five Years Later: The Best Albums of 2007!! Five years is an eternity in the life of a record. When coming up with this feature, the question the Spectrum Culture staff pondered was this: “How well do these albums play NOW!” Not five years ago, but how have they aged in our memories. While some acclaimed albums of ’07 remain strong on our list, some critically-lauded ones didn’t … Read More
List Inconsequential: Good Songs from Bad Albums Nirvana – “About a Girl” from Bleach Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder, and in the years since Kurt Cobain’s suicide Bleach has enjoyed an improved reputation. But don’t let this fool you: Nirvana’s first album is not a good one. It’s sludgy, derivative slop, reminiscent of the countless next-generation, third-rate Black Flag/SST roster devotees that sprouted like … Read More
List Inconsequential: Runt of the Litter: Weak Albums By Strong Artists Sky Blue Sky by Wilco (2007) Drugs help. When Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy went to rehab (no, no, no) in 2004, the band had just come off the masterful one-two punch of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) and A Ghost Is Born (2004), two of the most experimental, sophisticated albums of the decade. Then after he cleaned up, they produced Sky … Read More
The Top 20 Albums of 2011 20. Fucked Up – David Comes to Life [Matador] The most ambitious band to vaguely fit under the description of “hardcore punk” since Refused dissolved, Toronto sextet Fucked Up have outdone themselves with this year’s David Comes to Life. A rock opera is precisely the sort of thing punks set out to kill, but David Comes to Life never wants … Read More
