Review: Rivulets

Rivulets - Debridement: This guy could make Reverend H.W. Smith depressed. Stream / Download / Buy

Reviews: Mission Of Burma x8

Mission Of Burma - Forget: Such immediacy that will not be forgotten soon. Didn't know until post-listen that this was a posthumously odds-and-ends collection, so I look forward to delving into their proper catalogue. Stream / Buy

Mission Of Burma - Signals, Calls and Marches: '80s punk that's insanely catchy. I dare you not to like at least one song. Stream / Download (Videos, 2002 reunion) / Buy

Mission Of Burma - VS: It has taken me far too long to discover these guys. Stream / Buy

Mission Of Burma - The Horrible Truth About Burma: Another live disc, another dud. Stream / Buy

Mission Of Burma - Mission Of Burma: Easily the best way to get into this band. The catchy songs are here, the immediate songs are here, the rest of the songs are here. Buy

Mission Of Burma - Let There Be Burma: Another odds-and-ends collection, another waste of a casual fan's time. Buy

Mission Of Burma - Peking Spring: Better-than-most odds-and-ends collection because it foreshadows that what-could've-been. Stream / Buy

Review: King Missile

King Missile - Happy Hour: What a weird album. I can't really take it seriously, but, still, I'm oddly drawn to it. Stream / Buy

Review: King Crimson

King Crimson - In The Wake Of Poseidon: Another solid album from one of art-rock's finest. Stream / Download (Not album specific) / Buy

Review: Kent

Kent - Hagnesta Hill: It seems as though every other country (Sweden) has wonderful pop music. Why, then, do we get stuck with Lindsay Lohan? Stream / Buy

Reviews: KC Accidental x2

KC Accidental - Anthems For The Could've Been Pills: Before they became a pop band and changed their name (Broken Social Scene), they were a pretty good post-rock band. Stream / Buy

KC Accidental - Captured Anthems For An Empty Bathtub: A bit more experimental, not as entertaining. Stream / Buy

Review: Jimmy Chamberlin Complex

Jimmy Chamberlin Complex - Life Begins Again: Ton of jazz influence is evident, but it fails to appeal. Stream (Register to hear the whole song) / Buy

Review: Japancakes

Japancakes - If I Could See Dallas: The perfect post-rock album to fall asleep to. Doesn't get busy (a la GYBE and EITS), but just stays constant. Beautiful, but not boring. Stream / Stream (2) / Buy

Review: In/Humanity

In/Humanity - Humanity/Violent Resignation: The Great American Teenage Suicide Rebellion 1992-1998: It's just noise. If you're a Converge fan, you should check them out, otherwise avoid them. Buy

Reviews: Rachel's x3

Rachel's - Handwriting LP: I'm not sure this can even be classified as post-rock for it seems to be something more. Stream / Download / Buy

Rachel's - Music For Egon Schiele: Rachel's is no longer a post-rock band. They are now just a plain old instrumental band. Some of the most interesting, engaging, emotional, sentimental and amazing instrumental music ever. Each song is a complete thought, complete emotion, beginning to end. Stream / Download / Buy

Rachel's - The Sea And The Bells: Rachel's is a post-rock band, but a better-than-most post-rock band. Stream / Download / Buy

Reviews: Michael Franti x2

Michael Franti - Songs From The Front Porch: Soulful, laid-back, but most importantly, enjoyable. Not going to make you rethink your musical tastes, but my broaden them slightly. Stream / Download / Buy

Michael Franti & Spearhead: A more conceptualized album, complete with radio segments/skits. Kicker is, I don't want to cut out the skits and burn it cause I think it will detract from the album, and what a fine album it is. Stream / Download (Videos) / Buy

Review: Flipper

Flipper - Album; Generic Flipper: Not an album to enjoy, but an album to respect. Stream / Download (Not album specific) / Buy

Review: Primal Scream

Primal Scream - Vanishing Point: I really need to start sampling albums before committing to a full listen. This way I can weed out the ones I'm obviously going to hate, like this one. Stream / Buy

Review: The Faces

The Faces - Five Guy Walk Into A Bar (4 Disc): Rod Stewart sure could rock back in the day, but a single-disc affair would have sufficed for the uniniated. Stream / Buy

Review: Maggie Estep

Maggie Estep - Love Is A Dog From Hell: Like most spoken word put to music, this is largely a hit or miss affair. Stream / Buy

Review: Earlimart

Earlimart - Kingdom Of Champions: It's not that what Earlimart does is bad, it's that what they do is done so much better by many bands. Download / Download (2) / Buy

Review: Black Star

Black Star - Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star: "One, two, three Mos Def and Talib Kweli/We came to rock it on to the tip-top/Best alliance in hip-hop" Couldn't have said it better myself. Stream (Live concert, courtesy of www.mosdefinitely.com) / Buy

Review: Devendra Banhart

Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing In The Hands: The indie-folk revoluting is being blogged about. Stream / Download / Buy

News: Top 88 of '04 Complete With Reviews

Devendra Banhart was the final album I listened to last year and while I have listened to more albums released last year I have opted to not update the list. For now, the Top 88 of '04 is complete. Perhaps next year I will make a revised list which will surely be the Top 107 of '04, but not today. Tomorrow will continue with regular updates of albums from all years of release.

News: UponFirstListen Ripped Off

I read several music websites each day. All of the blogs you see to the right get a hit once a day (usually at night, after they've updated for the day) as does antimusic, velvetrope and pitchforkmedia. Others I check less frequently. Two of these are popmatters and stylusmagazine. Not that their news or reviews are any less entertaining or important, but they both have terrible layouts and are difficult to navigate and difficult to ascertain needed information. So, tonight, I'm browsing the internet at random and I decide to hit both of them up to see what I'm missed. Nothing major at popmatters (new Hood and Sage Francis review), but stylusmagazine has something interesting. Called "On First Listen" it's exactly what you think, only slightly different. They take established artists and make theire reviewers listen to them for the first time (the first one is a review of the Rolling Stones). Granted, their review is a lot longer than anything I write (or plan to, sans this and a feature here and there), but still, I can't help but feel violated. Of course, there's not much I can do, but the satisfaction of knowing that I've been doing this (at 3 different locations) for almost a year and a half, with more than 300 albums reviewed for the first time, makes me feel cheated. I plan to continue updating this site every day for as long as I possibly can (I already have the next 2 months worth of reviews sitting in a .txt document on my desktop, so assuming I have internet, you will see an update for at least that long. Additionally, I have approximately another 150 or so albums I have in the to-be reviewed column and that's not counting new stuff I discover, and trust me, I discover a lot of new music). UponFirsListen did it first, just remember that.

Review: Saul Williams

saul Williams - Saul Williams: Not as innovative as Amethyst Rock Star, but it's more accessible and just plain better. Stream / Buy

Review: pAper chAse/Red Worms' Farm

Various - the pAper chAse meets red worms farm: Both of these bands compliment each other well and are a good introduction into each. The real gem, though is the remixed "Out Come The Knives" which is better described as an acoustic version. Download / Buy

Review: The Music

The Music - Welcome To The North: It just doesn't rock like their self-titled album did, but it sure as hell is catchy. Stream / Buy

Review: The Go! Team

The Go! Team - Thunder Lightning Strike: Such a fun indie-rock record. Stream / Buy

Review: Madvillain

Madvillain - Madvillainy: Avant-Garde Rap? I don't get it, but keep trying to push the genre forward, it really needs it. Stream / Buy

Reviews: Fiery Furnaces x3

The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat: It feels so complete, even after just a solitary listen. I can't think of a reason why it needs to exit my CD player. Stream / Download / Buy

Fiery Furnaces - Gallowsbird's Bark: This one's going to take a lot longer [than Blueberry Boat] to get into, but I think it will be much more rewarding. Stream / Buy

Fiery Furnaces - EP: A b-sides collection that will see just as much play as both of their full lengths. For a more complete collection, add SBN versions of We Got The Plague, My Dog Was Lost and Up In The North along with the Fall and Clash covers (Winter and One More Time, respectively). Download / Buy

News: Redesign & New Blog

I redesigned the site. Got tired of having a Blogger Template that other people have, so I made my own. Many thanks go to my lovely girlfriend, Sara, for the logo design, color scheme and basic layout. Never realized how powerful CSS and XML are. Started another blog (PenguinVirgin.blogspot.com) to document my adventures of Linux.

Review: Xiu Xiu

Xiu Xiu - Fabulous Muscles: It's good, but I don't really know why. Nor can I decide if I want to listen again, but I will. Stream / Buy

Review: Wovenhand

Wovenhand - Consider The Birds: I love it. Empty and dark without being boring, pretentious or fake. Stream / Download / Buy

Review: Wilco

Wilco - A Ghost Is Born: I thought previous albums were okay, but didn't get the hoopla. That aside, I really got into this album (despite the high pitched noise towards the end). Stream / Buy

Review: Walking Concert

Walking Concert - Run To Be Born: Just about everything Walter Schriefels touches (Gorilla Biscuits, Moondog, World's Fastest Car, Quicksand, Rival Schools) is gold. This is silver, but still a damn fine album. Download / Buy