Music Reviews: Indie Rock

To peer through the lens of one of Elliott Smith’s key influences for a moment: everyone knows when an artist has made their Rubber Soul, White Album, or Let It Be. Rubber Souls are transitional — exotic, quixotic dispatches from early creative growth spurts. White Albums are post-genre, post-everything info dumps — essentially kits that dare you to build your own record. As for a band’s eventual demise, Let It Bes show the writing on the wall. And then there’s Sgt.... Read More

When discussing music some Boomers are quick to pull the “music was better in the 1960s” card. It’s a clichéd and cringy statement, but the decade’s musical impact is undeniable. It’s astounding to imagine an audience that welcomed boundary-pushing innovations by artists that dominated the decade, though what they really did was draw from influences that date back centuries. The fact that those bodies of work transcend decades and generations to touch both new artists... Read More

Elliott Smith’s 1998 major label debut, XO, isn’t as vibey as its predecessor, 1997’s Either/Or. Nor is it as laser-focused as its follow-up, 2000’s Figure 8 — the Sgt. Pepper... to XO’s Revolver.Still, XO is special. It captured a crucial creative flowering for the late Smith, where an artist known for lo-fi hyper-intimacy strolled into a succession of L.A. studios with a head full of new sounds, and the confidence to let them loose. And a large handful of its songs... Read More

One would think The Lemon Twigs were captured in a time capsule from the ‘60s and brought into the 21st century. Consisting of brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario, the duo craft retro-sounding rock with influences derivative of baroque, indie, glam, and power pop. It is ludicrous for any modern artist with an obvious trace of influence from decades past to be dubbed as “passé.” The Lemon Twigs manage to take every cliche of the genres they explore into one giant... Read More