Fruit Bats – The Ruminant Band
Eric D. Johnson’s Fruit Bats sink their teeth in a third album of sweet pop with The Ruminant Band.
Destroyer – Dan Bejar talking about Kaputt (2011)
It's been said by Webcuts in the past that Destroyer's Dan Bejar is the Woody Allen of pop music. His idiosyncratic, poetic touch is less that of a lyricist but a storyteller with a revolving cast of characters (mostly women), and picking up on the ripples and waves they create to make them a part of his own interior monologue. An essential eighth of the mighty New Pornographers, Bejar has been recording as Destroyer since the 90's. Kaputt, his ninth album is a sumptious, rhapsodic slice of 80's melodrama, immersing itself entirely in the era from the vintage instrumentation to Bejar's own penchance for seeking the sublime out of what some might find the ridiculous.
Why? – Eskimo Snow
The unlikely paring of hip-hop and indie rock actual make for compatible bedfellows with Californian band Why?'s fourth full length album.
Against Me! – White Crosses
Fifth album from these Floridian punkers. File under "anarchy, unfulfillment and frustration".
Interpol – Interpol
The Lights are on but the tunes aren't home on Interpol's disappointing fourth otherwise known as #4.
Spoon – Interview with Britt Daniel and Jim Eno (Static, 2010)
Spoon's latest album, Transference, seemed to show the band finding new ways to tie their own shoelaces, searching out their own "Mystery Zone" or what Britt Daniel will later say in the interview "we gotta try to please ourselves first". Notable for being our first interview where the band asks us the questions, Spoon have perhaps realised there's more to making music than pleasing yourself. You've still got to please your Mom too...
Atlas Sound – Sydney – 19 June 2009
I'd be surprised if the majority in attendance were familiar at all with Atlas Sound, but the crammed in masses of which Webcuts was one of the last to make the cut, were calling out requests that even Cox felt too obscure and unplayable.
Idlewild – Post Electric Blues
Idlewild return with their fan-funded sixth album, offering much talk of Warnings (and Promises). But do they deliver?
Arctic Monkeys – Humbug
Bah, it's the third Artic Monkeys album Humbug - which actually doesn't turn out to be half bad.
Kele – The Boxer
The (Bloc) Party is over. Now, it's a dance party and there's nobody here, except Kele and a few diehard Bloc Party fans looking bored.
Steven Heath – The Airport Fire
Peak Plasma Conc., 2008 [6/10] "A soundtrack for driving around the city at night" is how Australia's Steven Heath depicts his latest release and it's not a far fetched description; the overall feeling that it
Grouplove – Never Trust A Happy Song
Energetic indie-rock from LA's Grouplove but watch out for "the boring half of the record". Whoops.
Liz Phair – Funstyle
From "Exile In Guyville" to exiled in general. It hasn't been smooth sailing for Liz Phair. In fact you could say things have been downright un-Phair.
Adorable – Footnotes 92-94
Review of mid-90s band, Adorable, compilation album that combines singles, album tracks from their two LPs and b-sides.
Okkervil River – I Am Very Far
Very unsure about this album, the sixth from past Webcuts pet faves, Okkervil River. I Am Very Far from their best.
They Might Be Giants – Join Us
Join Us finds They Might Be Giants at their "quirkiest, catchiest and most clever", which is simply music to our old-school fan ears.