Disc Reviews
by Max Ink Staff Writers
Spoon - Lucifer on the Sofa
Spoon
Album Title: Lucifer on the Sofa
By John Noyd
Posted: Jan 2022
Label: Matador Records
(695) Page Views
Visceral bristling with slinky bootleg boogie slowly pouring over husky seductions singed in vintage derision while nestling tender affection, Spoon embodies irresistible rock ‘n roll grit with scrappy toe-tappers alluding to demonic grooves with crackling back-to-basics cool. Sweltering heartfelt rebels celebrating back-alley nostalgia with odes to radios and records, Austin’s primed front-line survivors dispense tempting friendships punctuated in sax blasts, scratched thrash and stripped riffs as load-bearing bass, rigid rhythms and doo-wop harmonies lay formidable foundations for antsy vamps and scampering slow-jams. Veering away from quick fixes and studio-assembled perfection, “Lucifer,” proves loose band bantering produces creative havens as well-rehearsed excursions unearth cozy lived-in verses, sensuous impetuous solos and boisterous choruses. A stunning band live, Spoon play’s Milwaukee’s The Rave April 23rd with Margaret Glaspy
Spoon Online
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Mitski - Laurel Hell
Mitski
Album Title: Laurel Hell
By John Noyd
Posted: Jan 2022
Label: Dead Oceans
(664) Page Views
Cloistered confessionals injecting micromanaged humanity into sparse artifice, “Laurel Hell,” is a sensual reckoning bursting in pent-up tension emphasizing monumental empathy itching to exist. From bright to brooding, solitary to magnanimous, Mitski sings into the night with candlelit synths, somber chamber-pop whose militant diligence and shadow-dispensing despair ignite symphonic flares reveling in elevated faith and incandescent strength. Wisely bridling majestic trepidation to end her time in, “Hell,” with spritely rhythmic sprints, Mitski finishes with beat-driven epiphanies glowing in rekindled desire for gloriously sonorous transformation, soulful control snowballing into tuneful communion between dark thoughts and tentative memories. Suspenseful interventions creating sage paintings, Mitski’s songs treasure deeply personal expression. Count yourself lucky to have tickets to her sold-out show March 15th at Milwaukee’s Miller High Life Theater.
Mitski Online
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Fazer - Plex
Fazer
Album Title: Plex
By John Noyd
Posted: Dec 2021
Label: City Slang
(717) Page Views
Placid jazz backed by Afrobeat Kautrock, the pleasant, intersectional, “Plex,” rests on post-bop launchpads whose stream-lined punctual funk jumps under smoldering twin-drummer grooves while spidery guitar, languid bass and voluptuous trumpet build vivid bridges over swift rivers. Chill yet willful, the German quintet’s distinct insistence weaves between eclectic musical territories carving safe harbors from foggy consciousness. A textured collective, Fazer fleshes sketches, stretches overlapping genres and wrestles polysyllabic collaborations, trading tempos, leads and moods to keep interests evolving, bright and chatty, mellow and meditative. Crisp precision, bold, but in control, the band’s energy juggles supple and eruptive, engaging and blazing in intercontinental conventions, treaties and alliances formed with refined compliance, integrating impatience into curious sensations whose lulling hustle shifts in rippling pictures and smooth opportunities.
Fazer Online
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Imarhan - Aboogi
Imarhan
Album Title: Aboogi
By John Noyd
Posted: Dec 2021
Label: City Slang
(691) Page Views
Dancing with fire, unfolding like a blossom, “Aboogi,” writhes in tireless vitality, flowing from intimate to inflammatory, layers wavering in mounting prayer, vocals coasting against sustained constraint and ecstatic passions as incandescent manifestations find labyrinth pathways, cleansing, fusing, seeking solutions. Generative demonstrations tamed in free-wheeling yielding and buoyant resourceful persistence, the South Algerian quintet showcase their new hometown studio’s high-tech production, cultivating roots while nurturing cross-pollinating occasions, drawing international cameos into Tuareg traditions to enrich an already wealthy melting-pot stocked in rejoicing and reckoning, bitter protests and savory praise. Welcoming sounds hosting tangy flavors wrapped in gangling shapes, Imarhan’s guitar-driven vibes grow from simple and soulful to scintillating and celebratory, inextinguishable winds blowing through cozy after-glow, sowing primal trance from cosmic improvisations inside ancient frameworks
Imarhan Online
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Louka - Testing Your Patience
Louka
Album Title: Testing Your Patience
By John Noyd
Posted: Nov 2021
Label: self-release
(986) Page Views
Gorgeous chords flourish into exotic options while intoxicating stompbox romps saunter through roots-music traditions, “Testing Your Patience,” dazzles in dark and dirty flirtations, bursting in meticulous menace whose lively asides and meditative meanderings enchant in fancy fretwork and lyrical pirouettes. Incorporating years playing jazz, country and reggae, Louka’s impeccable sideman resume has laid a towering foundation for a diverse third album. Rambling mandolins dance alongside balalaika haikus spritzed in slick ricochets, locomotive lullabies melt into grooved rocking chair blues as expressive messages simmer in hospitable whimsy. Acoustic music layered in global kaleidoscopes and electric eclecticism, Madison guitarist Louka Patenaude’s skulking rock, foxy folk and baroque Americana turns wonderful conundrums into effortless treasures, a casual world-class palette colored in trotting chops, skittish licks and bluegrass flash.
Louka Online
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Eva Cassidy - Live At Blues Alley 25th Anniversary Edition
Eva Cassidy
Album Title: Live At Blues Alley 25th Anniversary Edition
By John Noyd
Posted: Nov 2021
Label: Blix Street
(747) Page Views
A cornerstone of a career cut short, “Live At Blues Alley,” highlights Cassidy’s versatility and good taste in a thirteen-song set that swings hard in club-jazz mastery while soaring high with bell-like clarity and sensual empathy. A business decision turned historic document when Eva succumbed to cancer a short few months after the iconic D.C. gig, the 25th Anniversary edition beautifully restores the original’s gospel growls and choir-angel arrangements with mesmerizing delicacy. Funneling all her money into the recording, Eva put her heart and soul into a performance whose intimate setting focused on her tender strengths and supple vulnerability as she wound pop standards, childhood favorites and jazz ballads around pianist Lenny Williams and guitarist Keith Grimes’s subtle accompaniment with graceful cadence and soulful emotion.
Eva Cassidy Online
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Neal Francis - In Plain Sight
Neal Francis
Album Title: In Plain Sight
By John Noyd
Posted: Nov 2021
Label: ATO Records
(805) Page Views
Brewed in sugary Southern boogie, funky blue-eyed soul and sly seventies jive, “Sight,” cooks tasty honky-tonk gumbos glazed in assorted keyboards and peppered in barbed slide guitar and slippery rhythms. Dodging life’s knotty problems with tuneful grooves and nomadic attitudes, Francis’ incandescent piano propels bold romantic gestures into sweet-talking propositions, sending fate-tempting epics jumping and tumbling in velvety bell-bottom textures. A forward-thinking throwback, Francis’ roadhouse showtunes are dreamy and steamy, celestial and terrestrial, cavalier but caring, elegantly dressed in glitzy synths, restless celeste and moseying Fender Rhodes. A dazzling live act, adding, “Sight,” to Neal’s awesome concert catalogue can only heighten an already upbeat jamboree. Find out for yourself when Neal Francis plays Madison’s High Noon Saloon January 13th with Chicago’s alt-Latinx powerhouse Dos Santos.
Neal Francis Online
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Constant Smiles - Paragons
Constant Smiles
Album Title: Paragons
By John Noyd
Posted: Nov 2021
Label: Sacred Bones
(876) Page Views
Solemn, steady, cellar detectives, Constant Smiles’ cool elusive mood casts placid spells over merciful searching, enigmatic passions and rumbling conundrums. Tenacious patience makes, “Paragons,” a rising survivor’s champion companion, each song building upon ascendent defendants conjuring strong longing on bedrock clockwork while stark guitars whose ghostly solos skim weighty bass and dark synths lift with thrift and hopeful focus. Hallowed shadowy scenarios pushing unbendable agendas in whispered persistence, the Ben Jones-led collective hovers between meticulous Krautrock fits and tight dream-emo flights, effervescent sentries guarding and harboring floating innuendo with scissor precision. Evenly breezy in serene freedoms and fleeting machine-tooled soothsaying, this major label debut navigates half-remembered embers from burnt bridges in mesmerizing leveled-headedness, undeterred psychic surgeries meandering in candid analysis but direct in brooding execution.
Constant Smiles Online
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Jennifer O'Connor - Born At The Disco
Jennifer O'Connor
Album Title: Born At The Disco
By John Noyd
Posted: Oct 2021
Label: Kiam Records
(733) Page Views
Restless spirit and pro-active catalyst, Jennifer O’Connor turns a truly solo project into a musical opportunity examining contemporary identity, generational expectations and perceptive assessments through forays into electronic pop, gothic indie-rock and soul-baring folk. Writing, singing, playing and producing, this artist/entrepreneur is comfortable enough in her own skin to experiment with new intriguing sounds, allowing the truths in, “Disco,” to be stripped down or decorated as the subject dictates, constructing a fascinating multi-faceted personality wrapped in discarded pasts and valuable habits. Intellectual allusions and eclectic influences fuel O’Connor’s haunted sonics, framing sage refrains, discerning verse and real reveals while remaining thoroughly human with vetted questions and unflinching opinions shaping educated confessions; poignant pondering sauntering through wreckage and reckoning, beautiful modern blues harvesting subtly colored melodies.
Jennifer O'Connor Online
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French For Rabbits - The Overflow
French For Rabbits
Album Title: The Overflow
By John Noyd
Posted: Oct 2021
Label: self-release
(573) Page Views
Soft gossamer sustenance for damaged romantics, New Zealand’s French For Rabbits’ groovy ego-boosters lay sparkling marvels beneath dreamy soulmate-seeking feelings. Ephemeral pop remedies, “The Overflow,” charms in calm fairy-tale regalia, melodic microcosmic odysseys tinged in glittering twists; clever textured expressions toying in sharp stratospheric harmonies and sturdy curious counterpoint from a wide sound palette kidnapping theatrical parables in enchanted fantasies. Reality hides beneath the blithe wave-riding arrangements, balancing challenges while addressing concessions, pivoting decisions and revisiting histories. Studio-treated beats lead kaleidoscopic synths and digitized guitars into fetching episodes with cinematic acrobatics whose fluid moves submerge flirty coercions into sympathy and wisdom. Carefully aware and modestly confident, the quintet connects memories and wishes to lively tempos, hot pauses and lush touches in an otherwise pristine scene.
French For Rabbits Online
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Snail Mail - Valentine
Snail Mail
Album Title: Valentine
By John Noyd
Posted: Oct 2021
Label: Matador
(537) Page Views
Smart, sensitive, inventive and unpretentious, Snail Mail delivers sizeable ideas filled with soaring detours and heady destinations, easily believable and highly enticing ingenuity fused to friendly independence and familiar uphill battles. The sublime, “Valentine,” dances warily around gritty issues with uber-juicy hooks baited in purposeful versatility swinging between voluptuous alt-rock and coltish folk-pop. Grounded in visceral incidents and healing experience, Snail Mail’s skinned knees teases and diplomatic panache capture exasperated flashes pulling at spidery sighs, concocting hypnotic possibilities around troubling obstacles. Pride collides with whispered asides in a sophomore effort whose three-year hibernation bears sweet fruit, authentic caution and willful resilience packaged in novel positivity and savvy compassion. A dynamic performer, Snail Mail plays Madison’s Majestic Theater along with Spencer and Hotline TNT December 8th.
Snail Mail Online
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My Morning Jacket - My Morning Jacket
My Morning Jacket
Album Title: My Morning Jacket
By John Noyd
Posted: Oct 2021
Label: ATO Records
(519) Page Views
Six years since their last album, My Morning Jacket returns intact, generating bodacious flavors for magnanimous rock-gospel banquets. Slow-cooked, Southern-fried revivals providing holy locomotive mojo, this self-titled re-introduction delivers the band’s classic mash of big riffs with sensitive messages, serving the faithful with brimstone blazes while drizzling discernible mercies with unearthly reverb. Thundering hooks, direct lyrics and rock-solid beats, “My Morning Jacket,” is classic MMJ, a bold bohemian thesis suited for outdoor arenas and bedroom headphones. Bon vivant stomps concocting intoxicating pomp beneath songwriter Jim James’ inimitable simplicity, each tune’s piercing queries fearlessly steers between sympathy and sincerity as returning members Patrick Hallahan, Carl Broemel, Bo Koster and Tom Blankenship bake, inflate and interrogate, simmering and sizzling with devious fever, brooding grooves and delicate measure.
My Morning Jacket Online
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