Snap judgments on the most anticipated album leaks.
The temptation to enter an Okkervil River album through its lyrics is just as strong with I Am Very Far as it is with their other albums. But the tone's different this time around: Will Sheff always…   Read Story »
You probably noticed that we experimented with an Editor's Score for the past few Premature Evaluations. The feedback we received suggested these Stereogum ratings weren't necessary, or necessarily…   Read Story »
Hospice, the Antlers’ breakthrough album, was a lot like the ghost that lived in its songs: beautiful, frightening, a little bit stifling. You can’t fault the band for abandoning that heaviness…   Read Story »
Unlike the Beastie Boys' instant vintage, nostalgia and cameo-heavy video for lead single "Make Some Noise," Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 features just two guests. Both are significant, though: there's…   Read Story »
In four years Krallice have managed to release three complex, hypnotic, ambitious, whirlpooling albums -- even with its four members performing in a dozen or so outside bands. The biggest structural…   Read Story »
Wild Beasts were winking at us when they gave us a song named "Albatross," the slow-moving and slinky first single from the band’s third album. Hayden Thorpe’s impossibly pretty falsetto was…   Read Story »
Someone might have introduced Jamie Woon to you as “the next James Blake.” They have different strengths -- Woon the superior falsetto, Blake the better songs. Early into mirrorwriting you’d…   Read Story »
Beginning today we'll be publishing Premature Evaluations more frequently, and in a briefer format. These posts will also feature point ratings via a 5 Star System, but we'll consider a more flexible…   Read Story »
You should be able to tell if you'll enjoy TV On The Radio's fourth album Nine Types Of Light based on your response to the romantic, slightly cheesy aesthetic of the band's "Will Do" video. You…   Read Story »
Helplessness Blues is a deeply uncool album. If you played it for your dad he’d either say, “Finally,” or he’d laugh and put on some Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Simon & Garfunkel, Cat…   Read Story »