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reviews
Destination Tokyo – Nissenenmondai
Before you decide to try this album out, let me warn you that it may not be something meant for everybody’s taste. A good reason being that this album doesn’t contain any spoken word (barring the inaugural announcement heralding the album’s name at the beginning), nor is this of the instrumental club thumping variety. The [...]
Breakthrough – Colbie Caillat
For Colbie Caillat, calling her sophomore album “Breakthrough” sounds more like a misnomer. The initial wave of super stardom had already paid her a visit when she released her debut album “Coco”, which paved the path for greater gifts ahead. Unless of course, she was thinking of breaking through the mould of the sugar soaked [...]
Man on the Moon: The End of Day – Kid Cudi
Kid Cudi may not sound to be a familiar name to many, though most would have heard him. Sharing songwriting duties on Kanye West’s blockbuster “808s and Heartbreak”, this upcoming hip hop artiste received tutelage under one of the biggest names around today. Honing his skills in the studio allowed him to come out with [...]
Humbug – Arctic Monkeys
For the blokes from Sheffield, who till a few years back were making waves with their version of booty shake titled “You Look Good on the Dancefloor”, it seems surprising to see how little time they have taken to move out of that slot. Arctic Monkeys, if nothing, could be termed as one of that [...]
Post Nothing – Japandroids
It isn’t really surprising these days when you are sprung with surprises from Indie bands after having spent yourself scouring for good albums amongst mainstream labels. This Canadian duo bearing a massive Far East influence in their moniker, Japandroids do just this. Their debut album “Post Nothing”, a pun on the autopsies conducted to classify [...]
Bhayanak Maut – Bhayanak Maut
One of the biggest forces of pulverization to have emerged on the India metal scene in recent years is the creatively named Mumbai bunch called Bhayanak Maut. As with their name, they have been wreaking havoc wherever they have been with sonic whiplashes. The intensity is such that you would either be converted to a [...]
Maby Baking – The Supersonics
Kolkata has always been known as the thinking man’s capital in India. Things slightly left of the center (no pun intended) have always had a tendency to emerge from its heartland. So it is no surprise that the freshest batch of sound coming out this year has crystallized in the form of “Maby Baking” by [...]
I Look to You – Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston couldn’t have thought of a better name for her latest album. After all, weathering all those years of domestic abuse and drug usage, and coming out of it all clean would have required some figure to provide that sense of determination. “I Look To You” can be termed as Whitney’s comeback in ways [...]
journal for plague lovers – manic street preachers
British alt rockers Manic Street Preachers have had their share of misfortune. Losing a band mate who simply refused to show up alive (or dead) isn’t something easy to handle. Since Richey Edwards was finally declared ‘presumably dead’, the remaining trio finally felt like getting the skeletons out of the closet to purge themselves. A [...]
Ursa Major – Third Eye Blind
With the charm and adulation post grunge music once enjoyed being long over, it was but natural for a sub-section of bands to fall out of fashion. San Fran based rockers Third Eye Blind have been one such band; though recent efforts by them have been fairly successful at changing the band’s image as such, [...]
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) – Wu-Tang Clan
There was a time when East coast hip hop wasn’t really getting anywhere compared to the sheer energy contained within the hustling nature of West coast gangsta rap. A bunch of rappers (nine to be precise) got together under the leadership of a producer going by the quirky sounding moniker RZA. What they had in [...]
Slaughterhouse – Slaughterhouse
In the world of hip hop where you have every emcee dissing out the other with incisive precision, it seems but an incongruity when you are faced with the concept of hip hop groups. After all, a bunch of rappers, most of whom are known to possess bloated egos, coming together and working on a [...]
brooklynati – tanya morgan
Most good stories require the perfect setting and location as well in order to make themselves into a bestseller. Now whether the rapper trio Tanya Morgan’s latest album makes itself into a best seller or not is something to be seen. What seems certain is that they have managed to concoct the perfect setting combining [...]
chemical warfare – the alchemist
Being one of the leading and in demand producers in hip hop, it wouldn’t have been easy for The Alchemist to come out with a solo album. And now that he did, it seems this is going to rival the rest of his work for a long time. His second album, “Chemical Warfare” is a [...]
Overtures in Outer Space – Half Step Down
The name of Half Step Down’s album, if nothing else, seems to promise intergalactic missives. Or maybe the recollections of a drug addled journey. Luckily, when you lend your ears to “Overtures in Outer Space”, it works to be neither. A journey of classic rock n roll with its roots laid firmly into the sound [...]
Distance – Dhruv Ghanekar
In the liner notes on “Distance”, Dhruv Ghanekar refers to the axiom ‘You never finish a tune, you have to abandon it’. It was probably this which made him carry forward a tune he had created almost a decade ago, unsurprisingly called “Distance”. And though he may have abandoned it then, now he has eight [...]
Far – Regina Spektor
Modern day princess of the keys, Regina Spektor may have shot into the spotlight with the continued success of her 2006 album “Begin to Hope”. But her talent had provided a glimpse on the previous compilation “Mary Ann Meets the Gravediggers”, the sound of which has matured well enough on her latest work “Far”. Regina [...]
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts – Brian Eno & David Byrne
It’s eerily funny when you start listening to an album released two decades ago, and the first song starts with a newsreader like voice saying something on the lines of “America is waiting for investors”. Yes, everyone knows that we are facing a financial meltdown, and the shambles the American economy is in. Soothsaying, did [...]
Wait for Me – Moby
Repeating success isn’t an easy task; especially if creations which bear the hallmark of being called standard bearers are already your progeny. After all, Herman Melville wrote just one Moby Dick to achieve a lifetime of eternity. Genius, though, doesn’t lie furtive in glory achieved once. Not only does it lie in making that attempt [...]
Wilco (The Album) – Wilco
With a sound which identifies them more with the indie rock culture, despite being tagged to mainstream labels, Wilco continues with this dichotomy on this self titled release. More than a decade and half of being together (and losing bandmates on the way), the album is remarkably distanced from their previous works. Yet in ways [...]
Cradlesong – Rob Thomas
After spending almost a decade with popular alternative act Matchbox Twenty, front man Rob Thomas embarked on a solo career. The stupendous success of partnering with Santana on “Smooth” would have surely provided him the much needed impulsion for his debut solo album “Something to Be”. While most of his life he has been thrashing [...]
Street Sweeper Social Club – Street Sweeper Social Club
RATM guitarist Tom Morello adds another side project to his already existing alter ego as the Nightwatchman. Teaming up with Boots Riley (ex The Coup, an influential rap group from the 90s), he forges their political inclinations to form SSSC. It isn’t much of political message on their self titled debut album, but more of [...]
Sunny Side Up – Paolo Nutini
Some grow up faster than most others. For Paolo Nutini, the journey from being a teenager making foot tapping pop melodies to a grown up adult belting out some seriously mature music has taken all of just two years. His second album “Sunny Side Up” released recently stands in stark contrast to his 2006 debut [...]
The Ecstatic – Mos Def
Growing up amongst the brothers who made up Golden Period of Hip Hop, Mos Def has seen it all. And to a large extent, made much of it all too. His groundbreaking album “Black on Both Sides” cemented his reputation as one of the most in demand MCs known to us in the recent past. [...]