Monthly Archives: April 2012

★★1/2

It is clear that Nicki Minaj was not exactly sure what type of album she wanted to make when approaching her latest offering, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded. Caught between making a “hardcore” rap album and a happy-go-lucky pop album, Roman Reloaded sounds confused at best and horribly disjointed at worst. Individual songs may be strong, but as an album, Roman Reloaded is bipolar, transitioning abruptly from violent, absurdist lyrics to sing-song hooks and dance beats.

Read More »

In their first offering since 2010, Dirty Projectors do not disappoint. “Gun Has No Trigger” is an instrumentally sparse song, consisting of only vocals, drums and very subdued bass guitar. The track highlights the vocal prowess of David Longstreth along with the ethereal accompaniment provided by Angel Deradoorian, Haley Dekle and Amber Coffman. The interplay between the choir-like backing vocals and theLongstretch’s poetic heights is an exercise in deceptive depth.

Read More »

The annual GEMA Rocks concert is a Georgetown tradition that you don’t want to miss (although if you can’t make it out to Gonda, you can still catch the live stream of Saturday’s performance on WGTB!). This year’s performers include a slew of GU alums who have made it big in music, comedy, and television, and they’re going to put on a killer show representing six decades of Hoya talent.

And it’s coming up in just a few days!

Read More »

Concert:★★★★1/2

Album: ★★★★1/2

When I first heard of the Icelandic band, Of Monsters and Men, the first thing I thought of was John Steinbeck’s book, Of Mice and Men, followed immediately by the thought of a group sitting somewhere in a cave with fur coats on. I’m not sure why the latter came into mind. The band released their first album, My Head is An Animal, on April 3rd, and I had the pleasure of seeing them live the night before at Black Cat. The debut album is absolutely amazing and personally reminds me of a weird mix between Arcade Fire and The Head and the Heart, except happier (sort of).

Read More »

Not all covers are created equal. There are the straight-ahead renditions, and then there are the personal twists and complete genre re-workings. There are the covers that render your favorite songs unlistenable and, maybe most importantly, the kind that take a song you’d never given a second thought to and trigger that ah-ha! moment: “So that‘s what this is all about!” Suffice to say, most of us probably didn’t give JoJo’s 2006 hit “Too Little Too Late” a first thought. Read More »

★★★★★

I’m not much of an acoustic guy. They tend to sound barren, overly emotional, and sometimes slightly contrived. But, at the same time an acoustic version is sometimes just what a song needs. One band that can rock the shit out of acoustic renditions of their songs is Coheed and Cambria. Read More »

★★★★1/2

With an album of so called “piano music,” the artist runs the risk of coming off somewhat pretentious or self-pitying. The stark quality can be beautiful, but when presented as a full album, the listener can be surfeited with the often mournful tone and the album instead becomes melodramatic. However, Perfume Genius avoids this pitfall with great agility, adding other voices to create a fuller sound where songs could have become stagnant and filling the background with a diffuse, but nonetheless enticing sound. The best comparison I can think of would be to Andrew Bird’s song “The Giant of Illinois”: atmospheric, natural, and profound emotion slipping through an affected calm. Read More »