Sometime around the release of his 1984 album Climate of Hunter, Scott Walker discorporated and his consciousness scattered. Periodically, he’s able to gather his atoms back together and create a harrowing dispatch from the ether before vanishing for another decade or so. His once-golden voice reduced to a haunted wail, Walker painstakingly recreates the sounds of traveling through half-existence surrounded by phantoms of the 20th ... Read More

Ellie Goulding’s debut Lights reached the U.S. in 2011, but it didn’t take off for over a year. Now, Goulding is new pop royalty, and Halcyon presents a stark contrast to her introduction. Where Lights possessed an almost naïve view of the world, Halcyon shows her to have matured. Songs like “My Blood” and “Dead in the Water” take hopelessness to new heights. There are some nods to EDM—as on ... Read More

Crystal Castles set the bar pretty high for their third release. After all, NME named their eponymous debut the 39th greatest album of the last decade, and their sophomore effort received widespread critical acclaim. Luckily,  Alice Glass and Ethan Kath show no signs of slacking off on (III). This time around, they’ve abandoned some of the thrashing punk of their self-titled 2008 release while retaining the abrasive energy of a ... Read More

Lightning strikes a fourth time with Matt and Kim’s newest album. If the Brooklyn duo seems familiar, perhaps it’s because you saw their bare-naked asses in the now-classic “Lessons Learned” video. Behind the keyboard, Matt Johnson’s deviant, almost Dookie-esque vocals combined with Kim Schifino’s gung-ho drumming make for an upbeat, heart attack-paced record with just a hint of disco. As the first of ... Read More

Ever fancy yourself doing the hula on the sands of Hawaii? Singer-songwriter Victoria Bergsman’s musical outfit Taken by Trees can transport you there, metaphorically speaking, with her third album Other Worlds. During a visit to the idyllic paradise, Bergsman found herself amidst a creative swell, so much so that she fashioned the LP as an impressionist poem that sings the tropical locale’s praises. On “Only You,” ... Read More