Disc Reviews

by Max Ink Staff Writers


{review_band_full} - Barefoot On Diamond Road

{review_band_full} - Barefoot On Diamond Road

{review_band_full}

Album Title: Barefoot On Diamond Road
By {review_writers_name}
Posted: Feb 2023
Label: {review_record_label}
(1609) Page Views

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Robert Forster - The Candle and The Flame

Robert Forster - The Candle and The Flame

Robert Forster

Album Title: The Candle and The Flame
By John Noyd
Posted: Jan 2023
Label: Tapete Records
(347) Page Views

Brisk, rhythmic visions incubated in folksy jangle, tough-minded couplets and cajoling choruses, Forster’s uncanny knack for cordial stories captures wistful images inside jaunty sonnets. A ruminative troubadour foraging for simple beginnings and smart departures, the former Go-Betweens co-leader’s lean feelings weave scoffing thoughts among compassionate imagination. Personified in humbled harumphs and civil wisdom, the smoldering, “Candle,” illuminates those golden over the shoulder moments where disclosed moments gain trust in a steady beat and sturdy accompaniment.  The rhyming ruffian’s wonderstruck wanderlust, genuine empathy and matured concerns rally nuanced nostalgia, conducting raised glasses and furrowed brows in compact theatrics and ringing sing-alongs. Solid evidence presented in vivid symbols and pleasant resonance, Forster’s eighth solo adventure intertwines hearts and minds with weathered intelligence delivered in flowing, domestic fellowship.

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mmeadows - Light Moves Around You

mmeadows - Light Moves Around You

mmeadows

Album Title: Light Moves Around You
By John Noyd
Posted: Jan 2023
Label: self-release
(219) Page Views

Pretty, slippery, star-dusted trip-hop encased into snowflake ballets, “Light,” sparkles and glows, flowing with amazing radiance, pleasingly regal poise and sweet angelic grace. Delicate melodies enunciated in charitable clarity, mmeadows’ origami arias flit and flutter, perched in lofty after-clubbing lullabies whose fluid coos and crystal synths rest on romantic enchantments hiding behind refined Valentine landmines. Ear-candy architects Dirty ProjectorsKristin Slipp and collaborator Cole Kamen-Green bring polished softness to cautious showstoppers and supple wonder to life’s emotional puzzles. Draped in coy choral voices navigating glossy pop melancholy and beat-sweetened fantasies, the duo’s caressing perspectives and seducing illusions appear unbelievably achievable, dramatic masquerades unveiling unproven truths fitted in recording-studio couture, a balladeer’s paradise viewed through shatterproof glass with our own reflection superimposed onto the crafted pageantry.

mmeadows Online
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R. Ring - War Poems, We Rested

R. Ring - War Poems, We Rested

R. Ring

Album Title: War Poems, We Rested
By John Noyd
Posted: Jan 2023
Label: Don Giovanni Records
(309) Page Views

The intense sonic chemistry wrenched from, “Rested” vents savage aspirations by grafting gnashing catwalk-rock shrapnel to skulking sultry noise-pop shuffles. Brittle, splintered instigations riding seismic Bo Diddley twists mixing dark purrs curdled in surging murmurs, R. Ring’s marvelous second effort bursts in unexpected connections and frayed combinations. A palpitating collaboration between The Breeder’s Kelley Deal and Ampline’s Mike Montgomery, the duo brought in Bat Fang’s Laura King for a leisurely cohesive feel where muscular tugs stutter in lusty gusts and calmly detached crackles oversee the album’s relaxed feedback. A moody miasma throbbing in choppy guitars, harnessed drums and bloodletting bass, the fickle mingles with random cacophony as technical experts disassemble indie edicts, reinventing turbo-torqued engines for glorious joyrides, moonless rendezvous lit in bewitching midnight cool.

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John Cale - Mercy

John Cale - Mercy

John Cale

Album Title: Mercy
By John Noyd
Posted: Jan 2023
Label: Domino
(252) Page Views

The indelible infused with the incredible, Cale’s methodical plodding gels into spellbinding mindfulness. Tender but taunting, lively and laconic, “Mercy,” saunters in haunting honesty, placating pacing mania through somber homilies. Mesmerizing in deliberate directness, the iconoclastic master creates gauzed gazes glazed in chamber music synths while studio maneuvered grooves slither in liquid drifting mystery. Incandescent mantras march among regimented empathy as romantic candor hushed in plush sculptures and culled from alien landscapes open wounded hearts and nurse weathered memories. Enlisting a litany of talented acolytes including Laurel Halo, Weyes Blood and Animal Collective, Cale solidifies his cutting-edge reputation with futuristic flair, mobilizing sizeable ideas in celestial elegance. Electronic tone poems tinged in ephemeral menace composing compassionate fragments coalescing in narcotic beats sweeping beneath tentative meditations.

John Cale Online
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Beauty Pill - Blue Period

Beauty Pill - Blue Period

Beauty Pill

Album Title: Blue Period
By John Noyd
Posted: Jan 2023
Label: Ernest Jenning Record Co.
(463) Page Views

Gooey nuanced grooves whose macabre karma frame cornered portraits inside deranged bangers, Beauty Pill’s still-life bile spills into septic mental crevices, percussive bluster tugging at eerily theatrical lyrics whose unnaturally casual passions present inventive temptations with giddy insinuation. The double LP anthology, “Blue Period,” compiles the band’s complete Dischord recordings from 2003-2005 including the full-length, “The Unsustainable Lifestyle,” their EP, “You Are Right To Be Afraid,” plus several previously unreleased outtakes and demos. Anachronistic mischief coils curdling turmoil into fractured cabaret for sonorous paranoia as the insurgent, “Blue,” tasks elastic mavericks with odd plots and obscure cures while biting wit, scorched modern-rock uproars and bold psychotropic momentum fuse musical cues veering from blissful visions synchronized with terse insecurities to skewed cool slithering in cautious confusion.

Beauty Pill Online
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Cribshitter - Goin’ Soft

Cribshitter - Goin’ Soft

Cribshitter

Album Title: Goin’ Soft
By John Noyd
Posted: Dec 2022
Label: self-release
(397) Page Views

Seven years after the party-hardy anarchy of, “Acapulco,” scene-stealing chameleons Cribshitter return with a slew of polished sardonic straight-face shenanigans with a heart of gold. Slick, prickly insinuations brew lewd moods inside rainbow grooves as yacht-rock runs aground on languid country twang and done-me-wrong songs stocked in pop-culture name-drops, supple subtle cuckolding and grimacing whimsy sing between sweet steel-guitar, electric piano and braying saxophone; an immersive, subversive circus seamlessly weaving dark humor embedded in sunny vibes and miniature musical interludes cruising among pedigreed medleys. Sorted stories bordering incorrigible metamorphosis where beats meander between tropical breezy and jukebox boppy, “Soft,” boxes lofty sophistry with sumptuous punches landing loving conundrums for smart art-pop knockouts, blissfully fictionalized surprises and fine-tuned irony, both sinister and innocent, sultry and huggable.

Cribshitter Online
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Heavy Looks - Apathy

Heavy Looks - Apathy

Heavy Looks

Album Title: Apathy
By John Noyd
Posted: Dec 2022
Label: self-release
(452) Page Views

Fierce sneers glaring with teeth-baring defiance, smiling, dark alley vipers Heavy Looks roll up their sleeves and put their foot down. Weighing in with side-eye piledrivers and streetwise desires, the band’s latest release unleashes armored hearts ripe in righteous soundbites and chip-on-the-shoulder poetry. Tough-minded drive demanding romance in cruise-control hopes and gate-crashing thrash, “Apathy,” grabs confrontational confessions by the collar wrestling sketchy tempests with soda-shop doo-wop inside double-fisted kiss-offs, deadpan emo anthems dipped in Phil Spector gloom and hefty basement-rock chops churning discerning earworms into licorice-twisted bubblegum. Packed in bewitching grit, bent venting and greaser freak-outs, the foursome swerve in go-go booted bop cast in metallic hooks and mechanical abandon, cathartic go-carts on a rock ‘n roll roller-coaster steering between gleeful delirium and numbed noir.

Heavy Looks Online
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