VOLUME

Hefner are at their best when they stick to their primary theme, which is love that’s been confused, bruised and downright disappointed. Grab this album, your bottle of single-malt scotch and the biggest water glass you can find, and remember the one that you loved and lost… even if it’s just your home city.

Jenn Sikes, Splendid

Good Fruit [3:28]

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Still the Cynics’ old-fashioned influences work really as canvas and paints… what’s important is what the band does with its materials. Here We Are is full of fire and soul and individual eccentricity. It’s retro but not a copy of anything.  This is a fantastic back-to-basics rock and roll album—and not just for musical scholars.

Jennifer Kelly, Pop Matters

She Fell [5:47]

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Sasso and his compatriots Casey Laforet and Steve Pitkin of the band Elliott Brood are able to conjure up a sound that references the past without being bound to it, as the washes of electronic and found noises mingle with their acoustic guitars and banjos in a manner that’s at once spare and full-bodied.

Mark Deming, All Music Guide

Second Son [3:35]

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Cuff the Duke hail from Oshawa, Ontario, but the band is anything but small town. They’ve been categorized into the almighty alt-country niche, but don’t let that fool you as their versatility extends beyond fixed music genres.

Sabrina Carnevale, Stylus Magazine

It’s All A Blur [4:19]

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Where else can a weary music lover turn for something as soothing as The American Analog Set droning pop — languorous guitars, quivering farfisa, and mellow male vocals held together with persistent, though unobtrusive, drumming?

Dave Gurney, Tiny Mix Tapes

Play Hurt [4:33]

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It’s hard to remember now in retrospect, but in the summer of 2002, The Coral were going to be the saviors of the British indie music scene. The Coral may not be the Next Big Thing anymore, but they’re still making better records than many of the bands that have taken over that title in the intervening five years.

Stewart Mason, All Music Guide

Jacqueline [3:30]

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Pram Town is a catchy acoustic concept album from ex-Hefner frontman Darren Hayman, in conjunction with his Secondary Modern outfit. Broadly based around the Essex new town of Harlow, it’s an intriguing procession through some of the ups and downs of suburban life, replete with great lyrics.

Alan Morton-Smith, Music OMH

Losing My Glue [3:06]

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High Tide are certainly among the forefathers of heavy metal; as early as the late Sixties, they rocked heavier than almost anybody else. They are certainly among the forefathers of Goth - Hill’s pessimistic, depressive lyrics and intonations copped directly from Jim Morrison and married to this mammoth heaviness point right there sharper than almost anything else at the time, apart from maybe some proggish stuff like early King Crimson. And the trippy guitar-heavy space-rock of Hawkwind certainly owes these guys a thing or two as well.

George Starostin

Death Warmed Up [9:06]

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It is difficult to name another lyricist as apparently decisive and yet as audibly unconvinced by his own statements as John Darnielle; his ability to describe the vapour of something and yet sound as startled as we are by his own accurate dissection is the most engaging aspect of his songwriting.

Lauren Strain, Drowned in Sound

Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy Of Grace [4:48]

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Along with Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks, Harry Nilsson, and some others, David Ackles helped widen the definition of contemporary singer-songwriters in the late 1960s. This was a group of performers open to incorporation of many non-rock pop and theatrical influences into their work, and not based in folk-rock, like so many of the other early singer-songwriters were. His quartet of albums won him a cult audience that included Elton John and Elvis Costello.

Richie Unterberger

Love’s Enough [3:19]

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Encouraging Words was about as fine an album as Apple Records ever issued by anyone who wasn’t a member of the Beatles, and it’s also better than many of the Apple albums issued by the ex-bandmembers; but it’s also among the most obscure of any album that the label ever issued by a major artist.

Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

Sing One For The Lord [3:49]

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In a week when indie bands are falling over themselves to get their music onto tacky television commercials (cough, Wilco, Deerhoof, Architecture In Helsinki…), Shellac,  three snarky curmudgeons from the cold Midwest can still be relied upon to fly the flag for rock’s awkward, anti-commercial underground.

David Jones, BBC Collective

End of the Radio [8:23]

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For all the hoop and hah about so-called stoner rock bands bringing back the glorious mess of the late ’60s and early’70s jam few bands actually live up to the promise. Most crumble under the weight, become parodies of the music or deliver material that’s morphed into some sort of neoism. Thankfully, the lads from Earthless are having none of that.

Jedd Beaudoin, Sea of Tranquility

Sonic Prayer [21:12]

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John Vanderslice’s Pixel Revolt is an album of profound personal disquiet, set against a sociopolitical backdrop that is often openly hostile toward such efforts at introspection. It’s a work that absolutely rewards intense scrutiny, charged with probing political insights, cockeyed cynicism of popular culture’s creeping influence, and moments of disquieting black humor.

Jonathan Keefe, Slant Magazine

Peacocks in the Video Rain [4:25]

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