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Album Review
BEST COAST – CRAZY FOR YOU
Best Coast
Crazy For You
[Wichita]
8/10


After an endless run of 7” releases, Bethany Cosentino, aka Best Coast, has produced an album that will find its way onto many a Spotify playlist soundtracking drunken BBQs. Her early singles merely hinted at her talent for penning fuzzy, snappy love songs and often hid amateurish playing behind noisy production.

‘Crazy For You’ rectifies this by offering a generous use of Doo-Wop backing vocals (The Ronettes are a favourite of Bethany’s) and a sound that allows the vocals to lead the songs rather than the other way round. Highlights are the 60s pop of ‘I Want You’ and the more punky ‘Happy’ and the album’s length (29 minutes) ensures it doesn’t outstay its welcome, which, considering the limited variety of the material, could have been a real risk. Lyrically, things mainly revolve around smoking weed and boys (mean boys, nice boys, boyfriends, friends who are boys etc.), but that just makes it easier to sing along to when you’re drunk on summer and Fosters.

By Matthias Scherer


ZOMBY – NOTHING
Nothing
[4AD]
6/10

Your worst fears about ‘Nothing’ are probably right. The late-year, post-album extended-play sounds like the runoff of a few constructions that didn’t make the cut for ‘Dedication’.

MILAGRES – GLOWING MOUTH
Glowing Mouth
[Memphis Industries]
3/10

Milagres are a Brooklyn-based quintet fronted by a certain Kyle Wilson, whose soaring vocal style sits somewhere between Thom Yorke and Chris Keating of Yeasayer.

FOE – BAD DREAM HOTLINE
Bad Dream Hotline
[Vertigo]
6/10

On first encounter, ‘Bad Dream Hotline’ is your standard emo-goth release – black on black cover art, tracks called things like ‘A Handsome Stranger Called Death’ and ‘Dance & Weep’.

STANDAR FARE – OUTS OF SIGHT, OUT OF TOWN
Out of Sight, Out of Town
[Melodic]
3/10

‘Out of Sight, Out of Town’ is an album that concerns itself, in the main, with casual sex.

LA VAMPIRES – SO UNREAL
So Unreal
[Not Not Fun]
8/10

When LA Vampires first released ‘So Unreal’ on a limited vinyl run in 2010 it sold out in a flash, perhaps because of its superbly kitsch artwork by Spencer Longo.

DAN MANGAN – OH FORTUNE
Oh Fortune
[Merge]
8/10

Dan Mangan is a husky-voiced, melancholic Canadian singer-songwriter who does all the things you expect husky-voiced, melancholic Canadian singer-songwriters to do.

FAVOURITE SONS – THE GREAT DEAL OF LOVE
The Great Deal of Love
[Low Rent]
7/10

Favourite Sons is the most recent project of Ken Griffin, formerly of nineties outfits Rollerskate Skinny and Kid Silver.

FRANK ALPINE – FRANK ALPINE
Frank Alpine
[Weird]
7/10

Synth enthusiasts must have been veritably jumping with joy of late (would a synth enthusiast do that sort of thing?).

MARK SULTAN – WHATEVER I WANT, WHENEVER I WANT
Whatever I Want, Whenever I Want
[In The Red]
6/10

A long lasting member of the American garage rock scene since the late Eighties, Mark Sultan has cooked up a hotpot of a new album.

THE SOUND OF ARROWS – VOYAGE
Voyage
[Low Rent]
5/10

Some very big noises are being made in the mainstream press over this Swedish duo, and their calculated pop sensibilities go a long way to explaining that.