Album Reviews

A nice return to form has been achieved. While I thought their last album, Hello Nasty, was lacking compared to the groundbreaking holy trinity of Paul's Boutique, Check Your Head and Ill Communication, To the 5 Boroughs brings back some tasty examples of why the boys will go down in musical history as Rap-Rock trailblazers.

Sea Change, Beck's late-afternoon, mid-tempo reverie of an album, harkens back to the great old days of painstaking production, carefully drawn arrangements, and a concern for--and love of--sound and musical textures for their own sakes. Tempi are languid, notes are caressed, and gaping atmospheric spaces welcome listeners willing to be drawn in.

Fans of Beck David Hansen know that this multitalented singer/songwriter, producer/performer is something of a musical chameleon who delivers his music cross-pollinated in rock, folk, Latin, hip-hop, and even symphonic sounds. This all made his triple-Grammy-winning February 2014 Capitol LP Morning Phase all the more of a surprise, as it was a lush slow-moving, ambient-flavored, acoustic-driven masterpiece that commands rapt attention from listeners. The new Definitive Sound Series (DSS) reissue of Morning Phase from Fonograf/Capitol now makes it easier than ever to kick back and just float upstream with Beck’s music. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see all the reasons why the DSS edition of Morning Phase is a must-have. . .

Musician, composer, singer, and producer Zach Condon has somehow found a way to mesh the sounds of pump organs, real acoustic horn sections, ukuleles, drum machines, world-beat oriented percussion, and synthesizers into a distinctive blend that is immediately identifiable as the group called Beirut — a sound that bears a genuinely international flair processed through adventuresome recording situations. Read on to find out why ace reviewer Mark Smotroff feels Beirut’s new album Hadsel may be Condon’s most complete statement to date and why it’s so well-suited to spinning it again and again on vinyl. . .