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REYAN ALI
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Come together and grow
A dash of coincidence provoked Margret Wander's relatively quick entry into Doomtree, the hip-hop crew whose "Wings + Teeth Tour" comes to the Middle East a week from Saturday.
Jagjaguwar (2010)
Listening to Small Black perform New Chain is like watching lovely but reclusive exotic fish wander around a fortified aquarium.
Doomtree are a true collective, with no single voice dominating.
Temporary Residence (2010)
Knowing what Maserati have been through during Pyramid of the Sun 's creation makes it hard to consider the album on its musical merits alone.
Rough Trade (2010)
Last year's Exquisite Corpse made a deserved splash for Warpaint.
Indie-pop frenzy
Brooklyn's Matt and Kim just want to have fun
Fat Wreck Chords (2010)
Icons demonstrates just how little None More Black have changed over 10 years.
Road out of ruin
"Woven bones" suggests a serial killer trying to consolidate many corpses, or something a bloodthirsty despot might use to fashion a crown.
Secretly Canadian (2010)
Secretly Canadian (2010)
Post Present Medium (2010)
Over the past three years, Abe Vigoda have made some serious progress, going from California kids making cryptic but pretense-free DIY clatter to the sole opening band on one of Vampire Weekend's national tours.
Michael Gira carries on his venomous ways
Let's (sadly) dispel a myth: in Swans' salad days, the New Yorkers might have been a repulsively loud band, but their predilection for brain-thumping volume did not cause audience members to vomit.
Delivering synthetic reality
Most PR-ready band photographs do little to enhance their subjects’ character — they’re perfunctory (“These people look like this”) without captivating your eye or your imagination.
Fat Possum (2010)
With remarkable swiftness, Crocodiles tick off all the key characteristics of a band in the thriving lo-fi indie/punk/garage scene.
Pop retrograde
It takes Kristin Gundred about a minute to remember when she created Dum Dum Girls. It was 2008, she determines, but her sound rarely draws comparisons to anything originating within the past decade — or the one before that.
Kill Rock Stars (2010)
What's happened to the Thermals?
Kemado (2010)
Releasing a concept album is one of the diciest games a band can play — there's a thin, frail line between ambitious, intelligent storytelling and haplessly overdoing a bad idea.
This Will Destroy You rally against 'post-rock'
This Will Destroy You rally against 'post-rock'
Grinding it out
Don't be deceived by Tweak Bird's skinny discography.
Dangerbird (2010)
This makes it six years since Darker My Love got their psychedelic labors under way, and it still seems unusual that guitarist/singer Tim Presley is the same Tim Presley of long-defunct hardcore agitators the Nerve Agents.
Modern Art/ILG (2010)
Charlie Brand's head is a strange, fanciful place.
Forest Family Records (2010)
The duo who make up Cults have profited from having a dearth of info online.
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