Review: Love Is All - 9 Times That Same Song

Love Is All - 9 Times That Same Song: Atmospheric pop music with a shelf life equal to that of a carton of milk.

Stream Make Out Fall Out Make Up

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Review: Seu Jorge - The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions

See Jorge - The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions: Working brilliantly in The Life Aquatic, this gimmick fails to succeed as an album.

Download Life On Mars

Download Rebel Rebel (both courtesy of Sucka Pants

Purchase for $12.99

Review: Bell Orchestre - Recording A Tape The Colour Of The Light

Bell Orchestre - Recording A Tape The Colour Of The Light: If it hadn't been released, every indie-rock fan in the world would be clamoring for it, claiming its awesomeness. Because they released it, however, it loses some of it mystery. In the end, it's another mediocre addition to the very medicore genre of post-rock.

Purchase for $11.25

Review: The Sunshine Fix - Age of the Sun

The Sunshine Fix - Age of the Sun: Another Elephant 6 Collective release means, you guessed it, Beatles-influenced pop. What's striking is how well they are influenced by the Beatles without ripping them off.

Stream clips from the entire album

Purchase for $13.99

Review: The Strokes - First Impressions Of Earth

The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth: Not as good, or solid as Room on Fire (and it's been to long to compare it to Is This It?). Tries too much to vary their winning formula.

Stream the video for Juicebox

Purchase for $10.49

Review: The Strokes - Room On Fire

The Strokes - Room On Fire: I never liked Is This It? so I passed on this album when it came out a few years ago, but I now regret it. It's an extremely solid and likable rock record.

Stream a few videos and download the mp3 of 12:51 Music -> Room on Fire

Purchase for $11.69

Review: The Olivia Tremor Control - Music From The Unrealized Film Script, Dusk At Cubist Castle

The Olivia Tremor Control - Music From The Unrealized Film Script, Dusk At Cubist Castle: When they're not trying to be artsy and suspsenseful, you get the feeling as though they could bust out Strawberry Fields Forever and not miss a beat. Ultimately, it's really, really good pyschadelic pop with aformentioned moments of suspense and artsy-ness.

Download a few sample mp3s of Jumping Fences and Define A Transparent Dream

Purchase for $11.57

Review: Neutral Milk Hotel - On Avery Island

Neutral Milk Hotel - On Avery Island: A fine album, but had I listened to it before Aeroplane, I would have liked it better, but wouldn't have listened to Aeroplane.

Download Song About Sex

Purchase for $9.02

Review: Neutral Milk Hotel - Hype City Soundtrack

Neutral Milk Hotel - Hype City Soundtrack: The real early stages of a NMH album. This lays the groundwork for On Avery Island.

Download tons of bootleg songs

May be released in the future by Orange Twin

Review: Neutral Milk Hotel - Invent Yourself A Shortcake/Beauty

Neutral Milk Hotel - Invent Yourself A Shortcake/Beauty: More unreleased/demo/live stuff from Jeff Mangum. It's not really a necessary listen, unless you're a very large fan as any good songs are marred by fidelity issues.

Download a ton of bootleg, demo and live stuff

Possibly for sale at a later date via Orange Twin

Review: Elliott Smith - Basement Demos II

Elliott Smith - Basement Demos II: Fan collection of bootlegged demos with an unknown timeline for recording. While it's called the Basement Demos II, a lot of it comes from the Either/Or era, but still, I'm amazed every time I hear his voice how majestic it sounds. I didn't get a chance to check out From A Basement last year, but seeing such a strong set of demos makes me want to run out and pick it up.

Download all of the songs and more

Purchase From A Basement On The Hill for $12.43

Review: Sleater-Kinney - The Woods

Sleater-Kinney - The Woods: Grace Slick like vocals penetrate the air as Sleater-Kinney makes one of the best traditional rock-type albums the be released this year.

Download Entertain

Purchase for $9.77

Review: Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins

Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins: Sounding an awful lot like The Beatles, but with way more electronica, Of Montreal has created one of the finest albums of the year.

Download Requiem For O.M.M.2

Download Wraith Pinned To The Mist (And Other Games)

Purchase for $8.50

Review: Logh - A Sunset Panorama

Logh - A Sunset Panorama: For their third album, Logh decided to go quiet and make a really, really solid alternative album.

Download Destinymanifesto

Purchase for $10.26

Review: Imogen Heap - Speak For Yourself

Imogen Heap - Speak For Yourself: I was completely blown away by its beauty. Hands down the best straight up pop album I've heard all year, even if there is too much bass.

Stream Hide And Seek, Just For Now and non-album track Cumulus

Purchase for $9.49

Review: Sage Francis - A Healthy Distrust

Sage Francis - A Healthy Distrust: This would be the best rap album of the year if he would just get on the mic and rap. Instead, he tries to do some skits and some fancy production stuff and it comes across really low-rent.

Download Dance Monkey and Slow Down Gandhi (click on the plus sign next to the song title on the left hand side)

Purchase for $10.26

Review: The Drones - Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By

The Drones - Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By: "Actually, on first listen the Australian quartet may seem like little more than an unhinged bluesy garage outfit" says Brandon Stosuy over at Pitchfork and I couldn't agree more.

Watch the video for Shark Fin Blues

Purchase for $11.69

Review: Neutral Milk Hotel - Unreleased Demo 1 and 2

Neutral Milk Hotel - Unreleased Demo 1 and 2: If you remove all of the excellent production from most of the Neutral Milk Hotel songs, you're left with a foundation of '60s pyschadelic pop, which is what is showcased here.

Look for some of these songs to get released eventually on Orange Twin on a b-sides collection.

Review: Shakira - Oral Fixation, Vol. 2

Shakira - Oral Fixation, Vol. 2: Shakira is a singles artist. I have always loved her singles, and Don't Bother is no exception. But twice now, I have tried to get into an album of hers with little luck. It's not as if it's bad, but the singles are where it's at.

Stream Don't Bother

Purchase for $13.18

Review: Jeff Mangum - Live At Jittery Joe's

Jeff Mangum - Live At Jittery Joe's: He sounds so unsure of himself on stage, until he starts singing his song, and then it's as if he's the only man alive. In the end, the acoustic renditions of Neutral Milk Hotel songs survive extremely well, if not better in some instances, over the fully-produced versions from which most people are familiar with.

Download a 30 second clip of A Baby For Pree

Purchase for $12