Reviews

Music Reviews

ALBUM REVIEW: Black Country, New Road – Forever Howlong

Three years removed from Wood’s departure, Black Country, New Road offers the studio debut of their second life. ‘Forever Howlong’ is an ambitious, folky, and pastoral affair – replete with recorders, mandolins, and winding prog-folk odysseys. Yet despite its grandeur, it hums with warmth and communal resilience, the same force that carried the Cambridge six-piece through turbulent reinvention. This is music unabashed in its twee heart, lavished with baroque melodies.
Music Reviews

ALBUM REVIEW: SPELLLING – Portrait of My Heart

On her fifth album as SPELLLING, Bay Area artist Chrystia Cabral holds up a mirror to her own emotions. ‘Portrait of My Heart’ abandons the allegorical distance of her earlier avant pop for lyrics that confront love, intimacy, anxiety, and alienation head on. Musically, the arrangements follow suit – this is SPELLLING at its most incisive and immediate.
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