Charlotte Gainsbourg has a pretty voice, but it’s more or less just that: pretty. What I mean to say is that she doesn’t possess a lot of range, which makes it all the more astonishing that her new album IRM is such an enjoyable listen. Despite her lack of raw vocal talent, the fourteen tracks that compose the album are a relatively varied and interesting bunch. Gainsbourg herself deserves credit here for switching up her style and delivery from song to song, but the real congratulations should be directed at Beck, who wrote and produced all but one of the album’s songs.

Continue Reading…

By Dan Henshaw  \  1 comment

Mako Sica are still in no hurry. On their second, Dual Horizon, the band follow the same path, a slow, meandering path at that, as they did on their debut, Mayday At Strobe, and god bless them for it. In a world of easy pay-offs and cheap thrills, Mako Sica force you to pay close attention to what they are doing. The reward doesn’t come at specific points mind you. Your reward comes with the whole. Dual Horizon is an album, three songs total, that gets inside of the listener as it gently guides from start to finish.

Continue Reading…

By Ross Meyerson  \  comments

A Sunny Day In Glasgow | Photo Credit: Drew Reynolds
More Photos
It was a night filled with offset guitars, otherworldly vocal harmonies and vigorous dancing. If you missed A Sunny Day In Glasgow at Schubas on Wednesday night, then you missed quite the extravaganza.

Two hailed from the east including Brooklyn’s Acrylics and Philadelphia’s A Sunny Day In Glasgow, while Chicago’s Light Pollution opened. And the best part of the whole show? Every single band danced to their own music. Not just bobbed a little, these kids cut loose and really danced.

Continue Reading…

By Britni Day  \  comments

“You wanted the breast; you got the breast,” roared the emcee at Liar’s Club just before Slutter – the all-female tribute to KISS – burst into the opening chords of the KISS classic “Strutter.”

Continue Reading…

By Richard Giraldi  \  comments

There are shows and then there are shows. You know what I’m taking about. Performances in which the band are just completely feeling it – the crowd, the room, their band mates. Everything in the universe aligns at that one precise moment and it’s perfect. There could be a natural disaster, earthquake, flood or, most likely in Chicago, blizzard, and it wouldn’t make you flinch for a second because the band on stage are absolutely killing it.

This was the scene last Saturday night at Lincoln Hall when Chicago’s influential post-rockers Tortoise offered an immaculate performance during which they were received as hometown heroes – and rightfully so.

Continue Reading…

By Richard Giraldi  \  comments

Sometimes a band can take sounding retro too far and venture into straight replication of previously chartered ground.  Unfortunately for Yeasayer, and their sophomore effort, Odd Blood, what they achieve sounds like an 80’s new-wave cover band attempting to write originals of their own.  What results is a collection of stale and regurgitated sounding songs that don’t compel multiple plays.

Continue Reading…

By Andrew Kahn  \  comments

It’s odd writing this review knowing that the album’s creators are merely hours away from no longer existing. In case you haven’t been paying attention, Chicago duo Puerto Muerto, consisting of Christa Meyer and Tim Kelley, are playing their last show tonight at the Empty Bottle. And it’s quite a shame seeing how their latest release, Drumming For Pistols, is an excellent excercise in painfully honest emotional salience told through a veil of midwestern blues.

Continue Reading…

By Richard Giraldi  \  2 comments

Local H frontman Scott Lucas takes a page from singer-songwriters Bob Dylan and Neil Young for his debut George Lassos the Moon with his new group the Married Men and comes out a winner.

Continue Reading…

By Audrey Leon  \  comments