Album Reviews

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  Gabrielle Shonk Meets Your Gaze on 'Across the Room'

  PUBLISHED Feb 23, 2023

  Across the Room, the sophomore album from Quebec City's Gabrielle Shonk, began with a question: how do you admit that you've veered off the...

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  Bria Plays with the Past on Fiery 'Cuntry Covers Vol. 2'

  PUBLISHED Feb 23, 2023

  Over the past few decades, covers records have tended towards filler; stop-gap releases that let artists signal their street cred while kee...

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  Begonia Is Skyward-Bound on 'Powder Blue'

  PUBLISHED Feb 22, 2023

  Winnipeg's Alexa Dirks, otherwise known as pop powerhouse Begonia, doesn't care what people think of her. Her quick-witted, self-reflective...

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  They Grieve Come to the Light on 'To Which I Bore Witness'

  PUBLISHED Feb 21, 2023

  The best kept secret in Ontario's doom metal scene, They Grieve — the project of Gary Thibert and Deniz Guvenc, of Alaskan and Stay Here re...

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  Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Are Wide Awake on 'Land of Sleeper'

  PUBLISHED Feb 17, 2023

  After the release of their debut album in 2017, Newcastle's Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs were herded into the subcategory of "metal b...

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  Kelela Takes Flight on the Stunning 'Raven'

  PUBLISHED Feb 17, 2023

  On the front cover of Kelela's Raven, the singer is submerged in a borderless body of water, her face just barely visible above the surface...

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  Edwin Raphael Shapes a World of His Own on 'Warm Terracotta'

  PUBLISHED Feb 16, 2023

  "Maybe your country is only a place you make up in your own mind. Something you dream about and sing about. Maybe it's not a place on a map...

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  Caroline Polachek's 'Desire, I Want to Turn Into You' Is All-Consuming

  PUBLISHED Feb 16, 2023

  When so much pop music feels like face cream and vape smoke, the invocation of true, real-world texture — abrasion and stickiness, grit and...