By Roman Salomone, Contributor [Self-Released; 2022] Rating: 8/10 Key Tracks: “Blue Mirror Window”, “Wake”, “Broken” Kaiba is a four-piece skramz outfit from Athens, Ohio that formed in the summer of 2019. The band consists of vocalist/guitarist Lane Moore, drummer Jack Hampton, vocalist/guitarist Emma Campbell, and bassist/sound engineer Jeff Podolski. The quartet recently embarked on a…
Category: Album Reviews
Album Review: Obituary – Dying of Everything
By Nicholas Kobe, Contributor [Relapse Records; 2023] Rating 7/10 Key Tracks: “Barely Alive”, “The Wrong Time”, “My Will To Live” Legendary death metal band Obituary kicks off 2023 with Dying of Everything. This is their first LP since 2017’s self-titled release. Fans of Obituary will be pleased that Dying of Everything is not an incredibly…
ACRN’s Most Disappointing Albums of 2022
By the ACRN Editorial Team 8. Denzel Curry – Melt My Eyez See Your Future [Loma Vista Records; 2022] By Roman Salomone, Contributor After an unstoppable streak of great releases, Florida’s Denzel Curry aimed for the stars on his latest album. Except this time around, he shot himself straight in the foot. Melt My Eyez…
ACRN’s Favorite Albums of 2022
By the ACRN Editorial Team 20. Soccer Mommy – Sometimes, Forever [Loma Vista Recordings; 2022] By Grace Koennecke, Columns Editor As an avid Soccer Mommy fan, her new album this year was nothing short of amazing. Sometimes, Forever is the Nashville singer-songwriter’s most vulnerable piece of work yet, a slow and dark peeling of her…
Album Review: Show Me the Body – Trouble The Water
By: Liam Syrvalin, Contributor [Loma Vista Recordings, 2022] Rating: 9/10 Key Tracks: “Loose Talk”, “Radiator”, “WW4“ Within every genre of music, there are bands that serve to push the boundaries of the style of music they subscribe to. Show Me the Body is one of these bands, continually challenging traditional ideas of what hardcore music…
Album Review: Jeff Rosenstock & Laura Stevenson – Younger Still EP
By Roman Salomone, Contributor [Polyvinyl Records; 2022] Rating: 7/10 Key Tracks: “Razor Love”, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” Being the unstoppable and prolific machine that he is, Jeff Rosenstock has teamed up with longtime collaborator Laura Stevenson (both formerly in Bomb the Music Industry!) to bless the world with another release at the tail end…
Album Review: Yung Gravy – Marvelous
By Nicholas Kobe, Contributor [Republic; 2022] Rating: 4/10 Key Tracks: “Betty (Get Money)”, “Isn’t it Marvelous?”, “C’est La Vie” Yung Gravy… What is there even to say? Mama’s boy extraordinaire has blown up in 2022 due to the success of his single “Betty (Get Money)” on TikTok and his charismatic and wild internet presence. It…
Album Review: Inclination – Unaltered Perspective
By Liam Syrvalin, Contributor [Pure Noise Records, 2022] Rating: 9/10 Key Tracks: (all of them but) “Thoughts and Prayers”, “A Decision, Commitment to Self“ Whenever I talk about music with other people, I always tell them to give hardcore albums a chance. Louisville straight-edge hardcore band Inclination’s new album Unaltered Perspective is a perfect example…
Album Review: Carly Rae Jepsen – The Loneliest Time
By Nicholas Kobe, Contributor [Interscope; 2022] Rating: 8/10 Key Tracks: “Talking To Yourself”, “Western Wind”, “The Loneliest Time” Carly Rae Jepsen is the ultimate unsung hero of pop music. You know “Call Me Maybe” from 2011, an innocent flirty pop song that broke Carly into the mainstream. Despite scoring a few more hits, Carly started…
Album Review: Poppy – Stagger
By Emma Rickett, Contributor
[Republic Records; 2022]
Rating: 4/10
Key tracks: “Pocket”, “Stagger”
Moriah Periera, who started her career on YouTube making surreal videos under the alias That Poppy, has carried her uniqueness through all her creative works. Songs like “BLOODMONEY” and “I Disagree” are glitchy nu-metal compared to her first album, 3:36 (Music to Sleep To), which sounds exactly like music to sleep to. Periera is no stranger to genre-hopping and blending her favorite genres together in a cohesive, digestible way. Her new EP, Stagger, is a genre she shouldn’t have hopped to.
Album Review: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard –Laminated Denim
By Nicholas Kobe, Contributor
[KGLW; 2022]
Rating: 6/10
Key tracks: “The Land Before Timeland”, “Hypertension”
A new project has dropped from King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, which is frankly a miracle. King Gizzard’s fans had been waiting an agonizing five days since the release of their last album. Sarcasm aside, King Gizzard has one of the most insane output schedules in all of music. 22 albums deep, just over 10 years into their career. The band’s sound has ranged from psych, prog, electronic, metal, punk, acoustic and literally everything in between. The most recent leg of their career has been dominated by experimentation. This can be clearly seen in their first album from October, Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava, an album of seven songs, all based on each of the seven musical modes.
Album Review: Surf Curse – Magic Hour
By Devon Risner [Atlantic Records; 2022] Rating: 5/10 Key Tracks: “Sugar”, “Unwell”, “TVI” After the recent rise in popularity of their hit single “Freaks” in 2015 and the success of subsequent single “Disco” in 2019, Surf Curse released something completely different from their early albums. Unfortunately, they fell into the path of the “alt-rock” radio…
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