Mark SteinbachWhenever Animal Collective releases new music, it begs to be analyzed and critiqued. This new release, a two-track 7″ that will likely feature one of their singles off of their upcoming record (Honeycomb) and another track that will probably be a B-side (Gotham), is (thankfully?) far less abstract than their release from earlier this month, Transverse Temporal Gyrus. Yeah, Animal Collective is releasing a lot of new music as of late and it appears that…
New Beach House – “Lazuli” and “Myth”
I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I didn’t love Beach House. There are surely scores of people out there who can’t stand them. They must be a frustrating band to hate because, well, all their songs take such a uniformly dramatic, florid tone that likely makes detractors want to barf simply because their style is so consistently overwhelming. In the first five seconds of both “Lazuli,” their first official single off of…
Tanlines – Mixed Emotions
If I were to solely base my feelings for Mixed Emotions on its opening track, “Brothers,” I would be here to tell you that Tanlines has made the best indie pop album of 2012. On “Brothers,” swelling harmonies are laid carefully over Eric Emm’s wailing baritone vocals, creating an infectious pop song that goes beyond “catchy” and becomes unforgettable due to its infusion of subtle gravity. It packs so much promise that the album’s subsequent…