Review: Street Dogs - State Of Grace:

Upon first listen it's going to take me a while to temper expectations from wanting a sequel to Do Or Die. Still, what's here isn't so bad and really shows a broadening of horizons for the street punk.

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Review: Silent Majority - Life Of A Spectator:

Upon first listen it sounds what I would imagine H20 would have if they had been a mid-90s emo band and not a late-90s NYHC band.

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Review: Poison Arrows - Casual Wave:

Upon first listen this EP is pretty good post-punk. Not sure I could listen to an entire album, but a few songs works well.

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Review: Plants And Animals - Parc Avenue:

Upon first listen it's not as if this is a bad album. It's just that it passes by and you don't take a whole lot away from it. Some of the tracks are too long for their own good, employing minimally-grandiose (ha!) instrumental sections that offer little to the song.

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Review: Buck Owens - Ultimate Collection:

Upon first listen it's great to have some of these country-the-way-it's-supposed-to-be-done tracks. Still, it's a little grating after 14 or so tracks - especially all those sugary pop/love songs.

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Review: One Day As A Lion - One Day As A Lion:

Upon first listen I had zero expectations for this, so it easily eclipsed them. I liked it in EP form as I'm not convinced La Rocha's vocals (which aren't as incendiary as some of RATM) would hold up over an entire album, though I wouldn't mind the attempt.

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Review: Okkervil River - The Stand-Ins:

Upon first listen I've been rather indifferent towards these guys over the last few years. That's all changed with Stand-Ins, their best album to date.

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Review: Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst:

Upon first listen Oberst takes his most direct stab at being Dylan, succeeding in the process.

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Review: The Mae Shi - HLLLYH:

Upon first listen there's some quality tracks in there. Reminiscent of Of Montreal, amongst others, but a lot of it gets lost in the sheer abundance of musical shifts.

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Review: The Ike Reilly Assassination - We Belong To The Staggering Evening:

Upon first listen it's eerily similar to what Ted Leo would sound like if he had been more influenced by Bob Dylan and thrown a little Ben Folds into the mix.

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Reviews: Gaslight Anthem x2

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Gaslight Anthem - Sink Or Swim: Upon first listen it's Against Me! meets Springsteen via The Hold Steady. What's not to like? Scratch that, what's not to
love?

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Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound: Upon first listen and I thought it couldn't get better than their last album. How wrong I was.

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Review: Fucked Up - Epics In Minutes:

Upon first listen this collection of random trakcs showcase their more straight ahead punk/hardcore roots, before they got all avant garde. Worth having, if only to have a grasp of their progression.

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Review: Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes:

Upon first listen I was expecting over-the-top bubblegum pop. Instead, what was delivered was slower, more focused and way better than those expectations.

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Review: The Duke Spirit - Neptune:

Upon first listen the production was a little cleaner than I thought it should be. The music was very shoegaze-esque, but the lyrics crisp and audible. Still a fine rock record though.

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Review: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Best Of:

Upon first listen the pace was a little unexpected, Songwriting seems strong as does emotional presentation.

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Review: Bad Brains - Rock For Light:

Upon first listen I can see why this is considered a seminal hardcore/punk album. I just can't wait to remove the reggae songs from the track list.

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Review: Agnostic Front - United Blood:

Upon first listen this pretty much confirms my suspicions that I do not like NYHC.

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Review: Matt Pryor - Confidence Man:

Upon first listen it's exactly what I was expecting - a stripped down, more intimate version of On A Wire. And it succeeds in that endeavor.

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Review: Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue:

Upon first listen it was pleasant, if unsurprising. I liked the Bambu sessions more though.

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Review: Weezer - Weezer (Red):

Upon first listen it's a perfectly adequate pop-rock record. Of course, this comes from someone who wasn't a devotee.

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Review: Sky Eats Airplane - Sky Eats Airplane:

Upon first listen I'm not a fan of the "kitchen sink" approach to hardcore (or most aggressive music), incoporating throat-screaming metal, melodicism and more straight forward hardcore punk. It makes it all seem forced and unneccessary.

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