Kings of Leon return with sixth studio album Mechanical Bull

The Hound gives this album 2.5 out of 5 stars

After a hiatus with the looks of a band-ending breakup, the scruffy southern rockers Kings of Leon have returned with their first album in nearly three years. Mechanical Bull is an album examining maturity, with the simple yet rowdy sound that has sculpted the bands place as one of the top revitalizing rock groups of the last century.

Since the bands formation, the Followill brothers and cousin have brought forward a string of fantastic albums that positioned them as a top rock act. With the capability of echoing through arenas, the bands sound has always illustrated the perfect amount of soul, heartache, and dirty rock and roll. With hefty similarities to both monumental rock records Because of the Times (2007) and Only By Night (2008) that initiated real commercial success, Mechanical Bull returns the band to its sensational sound of a ferocious family style rock.

Jake Bugg Album review: Shangri La

The Hound gives this album 3 out of 5 stars

Young artists with promise are refreshing. Young artists with promise who understand the level of maturity their music deserves are the ones who may actually make it. Jake Bugg, the UK singer-songwriter, is a mere nineteen years old and already on his second LP. After releasing his self-titled debut, Bugg has returned with his second album in the last fourteen months, Shangri La. Even with the quick turnover of material, Bugg has proven to be more than capable of continuing his output of a meld of retro folk with scorching contemporary rock riffs, all matched with genuine lyrics of hurt and hardening with age.

Bugg, a George Harrison lookalike, creates a sound that incorporates greats ranging from the Everly Brothers and Elvis Presly to Oasis and early Arctic Monkeys. With a working class acoustic base and rapid-fire vocals, his folk rich tracks show off his vocal range and crafty lyrics. After first picking up a guitar at twelve, it took just a year for him to begin composing his own material. Since then, the baby-faced rocker has gone beyond the average teenage standards, releasing a critically acclaimed debut album and toured the world.

Death Grips Review: Government Plates

The Hound gives this album 3.5 out of 5 stars

Always eager to present a disregard for music industry, the Sacramento saints of underground noise-rap Death Grips pulled a déjà vu release with their free record Government Plates, an 11 song LP streaming courtesy of Soudcloud on sites such as Spin and Rollingstone, a little over a year after releasing No Love Deep Web as another free download on their website. A composition of mesmerizing intensity and little to no understanding of muttered lyrics, Government Plates is a golden nugget of noise for fans. For Death Grip-gripers, it may sound as if robotic punks have come to pillage your town and massacre any corporate entities present.

Album Review: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes ‘Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes’

The Hound gives this album 2.5 out of 5 stars

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes is a band with a understanding on how to generate a experimental mix of upbeat folk tunes with a partial psychedelic feel, while never settling for the same sound. That being said, fans shouldn’t be surprised when they find the bands latest album, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, is extremely different than their past two albums.

A collection of emotionally charged lyrics (“I’ve been trying to pretend that death is my friend”) and brilliantly unique use of instrumental sound, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes seem to be tired of the standard acoustic guitar and rousing chorus combo modern folk seems to rely on.

Stephan Malkmus and the Jicks bring 90s indie nostalgia back

The Hound gives this album 3 out of 5 stars

For music lovers who pride themselves on being part human, part genre encyclopedias, it is a given that Pavement, the Californian indie gods of the 90s, were a quintessential example of groundbreaking music neglected by so many. Led by the intellectually witty and talented Stephan Malkmus (lead guitar and vocals), the group blasted fuzz-filled guitar anthems holding plenty experimentation, while always supplying insightfully hilarious lyrics.

Similar to genre pioneers the Velvet Underground, Pavement received bountiful praise from critics and artists without much mainstream popularity, having only one single, “Cut Your Hair,” that made any sort of mainstream splash (more due to the comical music video than the actual track). Nonetheless, the group helped kick-start the indie rock movement that today stands as the overseer of most rock-based genres, whether it be cow-punk, freak folk or the more tame indie-pop.

Black Lips brandish woozy, classic-rock influenced return

The Hound gives this album 4 out of 5 stars

As rock and roll faces a crossroad between becoming known for polished, pop-heavy impersonators or a genre filled with raw emotions and artistic intensity, the number of bands holding strong to rock’s original values are depleting. One band refuses to join the masses and has relentlessly shown musical maturity while never losing their crude, raunchy persona. The Black Lips are this band, and they’ve returned with a new album full of past, present, and future elements of rock and roll that settles in just right.

Known (in)famously for their wilder-than-imaginable stage antics (ranging from making out and vomiting on fans) that help generate some of the loudest, most out of control live showmanship around, the Black Lips were just a group of southern-style weirdoes who got kicked out of high school for basically being weirdoes about fifteen years ago. Since then, they’ve become one of the prime groups of garage revivalists, performing their blend of punk and “hippie” rock for the entire globe—and never missing a beat on disrespecting, well, everyone.

Beck returns with masterpiece Morning Phase

The ever-changing, always ranging, totally amazing Beck has returned after a dormant period of six years with an album that’ll sooth, serenade and send listeners into a euphoric state of what I’d like to coin as “Beckcitement.”

Enter the Slasher Flicks holds bouncing beats and creepy synths

Outside of its intensively psychedelic sound, experimental gurus Animal Collective are best known to the music-obsessive community for the equally wonderful side projects it generates. Between singer and multi-instrumentalist Panda Bear’s Tomboy and now singer and multi-instrumentalist Avey Tare’s most recent outfit Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks, the plethora of outrageous material the men behind the Baltimore-based psych-kings have released is enormous.

Love’s Crushing Diamond full of melodic breeze and bliss

Beauty is an adjective placed upon music that touches a fan. With that in mind, any challenged fanatic can make the argument that Lana Del Rey and Led Zeppelin hold equal levels of loveliness. However, some music thrown at a listener just has a certain sound that just screams beauty.