Wednesday’s Rat Saw God: Southern Gothic country shoegaze played with exhilarating intensity

Wednesday’s fifth album, Rat Saw God, contains an unreasonable amount of awesomeness. The Asheville, North Carolina quintet does so many things so well on their breakout LP it’s almost not fair. I’ve heard their sound referred to as “country shoegaze” or “if Sonic Youth were from the South,” and those are apt descriptions. They play … Continue reading Wednesday’s Rat Saw God: Southern Gothic country shoegaze played with exhilarating intensity

Wet Leg’s debut LP is a raunchy, joyous treat and an instant rock & roll classic

Early this year, in my write-up of the best albums of 2021, I wrote this about young hyperpop artists like Banoffee and Charli XCX, who are making some of my favorite sounds lately: “I’m a 51-year-old dad and house DJ and this music is not made for me; the target audience is decades younger, not … Continue reading Wet Leg’s debut LP is a raunchy, joyous treat and an instant rock & roll classic

New York’s postpunk revival deserves a better documentary than Meet Me in the Bathroom

You can tell that Meet Me in the Bathroom, the new documentary about New York’s explosive music scene of the early 2000s, is going to misfire from the very first sequence. A 1959 recording of actor Ed Begley reading “Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun,” Walt Whitman’s soaring tribute to New York from his masterwork … Continue reading New York’s postpunk revival deserves a better documentary than Meet Me in the Bathroom