Main Page Blog Photos Forum Main Page Blog Photos Forum Main Page Blog Photos Forum Main Page Blog Photos Forum Main Page Blog Photos Forum Main Page Blog Photos Forum Main Page Blog Photos Forum Main Page Blog Photos Forum Main Page Blog Photos Forum

DBF Album Review Archives

2009:
A.C. Newman – Get Guilty (Daigle) - 78
Andrew Bird – Noble Beast (BVaz) - 89
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (BVaz) - 84
Beach House – Devotion (Daigle) - 84
Bon Iver – Blood Bank EP (BVaz) - 75
Deerhunter – Microcastle (BVaz) - 86
Franz Ferdinand – Tonight: Franz Ferdinand (chuck p) - 81
Glasvegas – Glasvegas (BVaz) - 80
Guns N’ Roses – Chinese Democracy (Marcus) - 62
Heartless Bastards – The Mountain (BVaz) - 77
Kid, You’ll Move Mountains – Loomings (BVaz) - 75
Longwave – Secrets Are Sinister (BVaz) - 82
M. Ward – Hold Time (Daigle) - 71
Matt & Kim – Grand (BVaz) - 87
Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band – Mt. St. Helen’s Vietnam Band (BVaz) - 83
Peter, Bjorn & John – Living Thing (BVaz) - 67
The Hold Steady – Stay Positive (Daigle) - 85
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (BVaz) - 75
The Steps – The Steps (BVaz) - 76
Titus Andronicus – The Airing of Grievances (Daigle) - 86
Wavves – Wavvves (Daigle) - 80
Wintersleep – Welcome To The Night Sky (BVaz) - 77
2008:
Aimee Mann – @#%&! Smilers (BVaz) - 75
Black Kids – Partie Traumatic (BVaz) - 71
Blitzen Trapper – Furr (BVaz) - 86
British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music? (Daigle) - 89
Coldplay – Viva La Vida (Daigle) - 73
Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours (BVaz) - 80
Death Cab For Cutie – Narrow Stairs (BVaz) - 74
Department of Eagles – In Ear Park (BVaz) - 86
Does It Offend You, Yeah? – You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into (BVaz) - 68
Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (BVaz) - 77
Francis and the Lights – Striking EP (Rheinborg)
French Kicks – Swimming (Rheinborg) - 70
French Kicks – Swimming (Daigle) - 73
Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight (Rheinborg)
Girl Talk – Feed The Animals (BVaz)
Headlights – Some Racing, Some Stopping (Daigle) - 76
Last Shadow Puppets – Age of the Understatement (BVaz) - 81
Lemuria – Get Better (BVaz) - 75
Lightspeed Champion – Falling Off the Lavender Bridge (Daigle) - 89
Lil’ Wayne – Tha Carter III (chuck p) - 72
Los Campesinos! – We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed (BVaz) - 87
M83 – Saturdays=Youth (BVaz) - 75
MGMT – Oracular Spectacular (Marcus) - 84
My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges (BVaz) - 84
New Young Pony Club – Fantastic Playroom (Daigle) - 68
Okkervil River – The Stand Ins (Daigle) - 80
Portishead – Third (BVaz) - 92
Ra Ra Riot – The Rhumb Line (BVaz) - 82
Reviews Update, 2008 Thus Far (BVaz)
Sigur Ros – Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust (BVaz) - 84
Silver Jews – Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea (BVaz) - 87
Tapes ‘n Tapes – Walk it Off (Daigle) - 75
The Cool Kids – The Bake Sale (chuck p) - 85
The Fairline Parkway – A Memory Of Open Spaces (BVaz) - 74
The Helio Sequence – Keep Your Eyes Ahead (Daigle) - 75
The Moviegoers – Or The Gun (BVaz) - 72
The National – A Skin, A Night / Virginia EP (Rheinborg)
The Raconteurs – Consolers of the Lonely (Daigle) - 85
The Raveonettes – Lust Lust Lust (Daigle) - 67
The Teenagers – Reality Check (BVaz) - 76
The Walkmen: You & Me (Daigle) - 86
Ting Tings – We Started Nothing (BVaz) - 77
Tokyo Police Club – Elephant Shell (BVaz) - 83
TV On The Radio – Dear Science (BVaz) - 88
Walter Meego – Voyager (BVaz) - 81
Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer (BVaz) - 93

Recent Album Reviews

75

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Posted April 21st, 2009 by BVaz · 3 Comments

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Had heard a fair amount of buzz around these guys and managed to check them out at SXSW and I was fairly blown away by their live show. They had a great loud energetic sound to flesh out great, hook-y songs and the whole thing just exploded off the stage. I have to admit I really have only listened to the album after having seen them live. I think the live show is still where they really shine but the album is a great basis for all of that. They really have a wall of sound kind of ...

[Read more →]


Categories: Albums, Main, Music, Reviews
→ 3 CommentsTags: ,

67

Peter, Bjorn & John – Living Thing

Posted April 20th, 2009 by BVaz · No Comments

Peter, Bjorn & John - Living Thing
Well PBJ's last release "Writer's Block" was one of my favorite albums of 2007 with some great hooks and just generally great songs put together in a nice package, and the fact that I thought they really brought it live didn't hurt either. It had some very dramatic, epic songs along with some very sweet numbers ("Young Folks") along with some big time indie rock outs ("Up Against The Wall"). They just recently released their proper follow up to that album (I'm not counting the instrumental album released last year) and I will say the results are decidedly ...

[Read more →]


Categories: Albums, Main, Music, Reviews
→ No CommentsTags: , , ,

83

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band – Mt. St. Helen’s Vietnam Band

Posted April 20th, 2009 by BVaz · No Comments

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band - Mt. St. Helen's Vietnam Band
Picked up this album before my trip to SXSW and listened to it on the way down and actually managed to catch them live at the Mohawk during the fest, which was pretty awesome. Anyway, along the way there I totally fell in love with this album as it really just has so many things going for it and brings together so many elements into an awesome package that is unique but also totally rocks. There are spacy, atmospheric vocals to kick it off, and the album constantly mixes elements from bands like The Strokes, Bloc Party and Modest Mouse ...

[Read more →]


Categories: Albums, Main, Music, Reviews
→ No CommentsTags: ,

80

Wavves – Wavvves

Posted March 30th, 2009 by Daigle · 1 Comment

Wavves - Wavvves
Wavves Wavvves is a heavily distorted, extremely lo-fi deconstructed noise-punk record of awesomeness. Clocking in at just over 36 minutes, San Diego based Nathan Williams blasts through the 14 song record with an appropriate punk crispness. When describing this album to my sister I told her that it was lo-fi, heavily distorted guitars, heavily distorted vocals, noise-punk, with ultra simple lyrics that aren't very deep. She responded that it sounded terrible. I assured her that this record was very good and despite her trepidations, just because something is lo-fi or distorted doesn't make it bad, and in the combination that ...

[Read more →]


Categories: Albums, Music, Reviews
→ 1 CommentTags: , , , ,

71

M. Ward – Hold Time

Posted March 26th, 2009 by Daigle · 1 Comment

M. Ward - Hold Time
I knew virtually nothing about M. Ward before I saw him a couple of weeks ago at the DMA in Dallas. The show turned out to be a solo acoustic affair, but I enjoyed the songs themselves, so I picked up the new album, Hold Time, the next day at lunch. What I got was exactly what I expected - a mix of blues, bluegrass, country, folk and a little old school rock and roll sprinkled throughout. That's not to say all the songs are a substantially similar mix of those styles; quite the contrary. M. Ward covers a lot ...

[Read more →]


Categories: Albums, Main, Music, Reviews
→ 1 CommentTags: , ,

78

A.C. Newman – Get Guilty

Posted February 12th, 2009 by Daigle · No Comments

A.C. Newman - Get Guilty
  Picked up this album a couple of weeks ago mostly because I absolutely love The New Pornographers.  Twin Cinema and the somewhat overlooked Challengers were both among the best albums of their respective years.  I think it's easy to just call those albums, and this one, pop or power pop, and leave it at that.  I think that is a little unfair and not a very apt title for Get Guilty.  While it does have many hook heavy, pop-y elements, it's not simply pop, but very well crafted, if still upbeat songs.  I think simply classifying it as pop paints this album with too ...

[Read more →]


Categories: Albums, Main, Music, Reviews
→ No CommentsTags: , , , , , , ,

87

Matt & Kim – Grand

Posted February 11th, 2009 by BVaz · 3 Comments

Matt & Kim - Grand
Well there have certainly been a lot of big releases so far this year that have been much ballyhooed and that I have thoroughly enjoyed, notably the Animal Collective and Andrew Bird albums. Well the same week that those two albums came out, another album hit, Matt & Kim's 'Grand', and I have to say I am enjoying this one as much if not more than those other two. They have put together a perfect mix of sloppy dance beats and synths and basic vocals into a truly awesome mix for this album. This thing is damn ...

[Read more →]


Categories: Albums, Main, Music, Reviews
→ 3 CommentsTags: , , , ,

77

Wintersleep – Welcome To The Night Sky

Posted February 10th, 2009 by BVaz · No Comments

Wintersleep - Welcome To The Night Sky
This album has been around for a while in Europe I believe (according to wikipedia it was released in 2007) but it was released just last November here in the U.S. Wintersleep is an indie-rock group from Canada (of course) that have a pretty full rock sound they bring on the tracks in here, with a fair amount of melodic know-how and the occasional solo chop, they put together quite a good record here. Uptempo atmospheric rock tracks abound here creating a lush soundscape to really pull the listener in and get a great vibe going, and it ...

[Read more →]


Categories: Albums, Main, Music, Reviews
→ No CommentsTags: , ,

76

The Steps – The Steps

Posted February 9th, 2009 by BVaz · No Comments

The Steps - The Steps
There are certainly a shit-ton of good up and coming bands coming out of Austin currently. Of course there is White Denim, Boxing Lesson, and now we can add The Steps to the list. I have been checking out this self-titled LP , and it is some damn good stuff. They have some cool Strokes/Hives-esque moments intertwined with some cool solos and more traditional melodies that all combine to make a very good record. These guys are certainly not trying to reinvent the wheel here, and the album can be largely described in a larger category of 'rock ...

[Read more →]


Categories: Albums, Main, Music, Reviews
→ No CommentsTags: , ,

81

Franz Ferdinand – Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

Posted February 7th, 2009 by chuck p · 1 Comment

Franz Ferdinand - Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
Full disclosure: among all of the rock/alternative albums released in the first half of this decade, Franz Ferdinand's self-titled was one of my favorites.  The album struck a chord with its rock foundation and punk and dance flourishes; while excellent singles like "Take Me Out", "Darts of Pleasure", and "Michael" were the obvious highlights, this sonic synthesis propelled tracks like "Jacqueline" and "Come on Home" and made their debut a winner. Five years later, the group releases Tonight: Franz Ferdinand.  Much has been made over the four year lay-off between this album and their second album, You Could Have It So ...

[Read more →]


Categories: Albums, Main, Music, Reviews
→ 1 CommentTags: , , ,