Album Reviews

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  The Rolling Stones Are Better Than They Need to Be on 'Hackney Diamonds'

  PUBLISHED Oct 20, 2023

  It should be a surprise to no one that the Rolling Stones managed to make such a strong album in 2023. If anyone is known for flouting age...

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  Sufjan Stevens Is a Vessel for the Apparition on 'Javelin'

  PUBLISHED Oct 19, 2023

  Is this Sufjan Stevens album gay, or about God — or is it grief? The answer is, as devoted fans have unspokenly known for decades, all of t...

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  Rêve Is a Dream Come True on 'Saturn Return'

  PUBLISHED Oct 19, 2023

  This isn't so much an entrance as an ascension. The first album by Montreal-born, Toronto-based singer-songwriter Briannah Donolo under her...

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  Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter Is on a Mysterious Pilgrimage on 'SAVED!'

  PUBLISHED Oct 18, 2023

  Take up your cross and behold, the Reverend has arrived, miraculously, from her despairing ravine of pain and sorrow! Following her harrow...

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  Emma Anderson Closes a Loop and Opens a Door with 'Pearlies'

  PUBLISHED Oct 17, 2023

  Whether or not Emma Anderson's first solo album was intentionally timed to arrive just a few months after 4AD reissued Lush's three studio...

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  Night Lunch Are Running Through the Dark on 'Fire in the Rose Garden'

  PUBLISHED Oct 17, 2023

  On Fire in the Rose Garden, Montreal's Night Lunch make their weird little home beneath layers of post-disco punk haze, R&B, obscure sugar...

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  Squirrel Flower Taps into the Minutiae of Apocalypse on 'Tomorrow's Fire'

  PUBLISHED Oct 13, 2023

  Music about climate disaster usually feels somewhat dogmatic and thematically grandiose. But on Tomorrow's Fire, Ella Williams of Squirrel...

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  Fern Sully Have Infinite Potential on Their 'Better Luck Next Time' EP

  PUBLISHED Oct 13, 2023

  While online information about Fern Sully is scant, this much we can glean: the band — whose earliest music materialized online in March 20...