It’s not every day you find a Japanese singer getting traction on what’s known as “Adult R&B” radio — a catch-all format where artists with interest in pre-Drake R&B can still find a commercial audience. But here comes Nao Yoshioka, who was born in Osaka, climbing the chart with “I …
Read More »Review: Aaron Lee Tasjan's Out-There Exploration 'Karma for Cheap'
Nashville’s most eclectic singer-songwriter returns with a trippy stunner full of swirling, immersive rock songs that evoke both the effervescence of the Sixties and the grit of today. But while Aaron Lee Tasjan, as mesmerizing a guitar player as he is a songwriter, nods heavily to the Beatles on Karma …
Read More »Review: Mock Identity's 'Paradise' is Explosive Post-Post-Punk
This D.C. quartet’s terse debut grinds and giggles as it flips off the status quo, taking the old saw about dancing’s place in a revolution and repurposing it as a credo for a perpetual-motion, no-jerks-allowed mosh pit. Vocalist Adriana-Lucia Cotes has an urgent yelp that gives her bandmates’ spiky, nimble …
Read More »Review: Superchunk, Purple-State Punks, Explode With Best Album in Years
When Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, something snapped inside the members of Superchunk. As they watched “deplorables” take cabinet positions and alt-right Nazis align, the veteran indie-rockers had a visceral reaction. The band members, four liberal-minded musicians who have called purple-state North Carolina their home since they formed …
Read More »Review: Justin Timberlake Heads for the Country (Sort of) on New LP
On his fifth album, Justin Timberlake continues to stay dedicated to Timbaland/Neptunes futuresex beats and his familiar lovesound come-ons that have made him the biggest male pop star of his generation. But, as its title implies, much of Man of the Woods also comes with the moonshine-and-mason-jar glisten of country, …
Read More »Review: Tove Lo Continues Dark Lust Saga on 'Blue Lips'
The sequel to Tove Lo‘s raw Lady Wood, like her stylized longform videos, deals explicitly with derangement – sexual, emotional, drug-induced. It’d be easy to dismiss as softcore shock-pop if her songwriting wasn’t so formidable. The nicely-titled “Disco Tits” is a lustily convincing club single; “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and …
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