Crystal Castles “III” Review
Crystal Castles have put together their album which is to be known as “III” but is more respectfully titled “Crystal Castles.” Three albums deep, and it looks like the duo of Alice Glass and Ethan Kath are just continuing to formulate and carve a sound that is nearly entirely their own. And three albums deep,...
Shiny Toy Guns “III” Review
Shiny Toy Guns aren’t the most popular group around, with plenty of people who find their music synthetic and silly. I, on the other hand, find it exquisite, managing to fine-tune and sift through most of the greater aspects of contemporary electronic and rock. The male female vocal dynamic always worked wonderfully in their favor, with the...
Fall Out Boy “Folie a Deux” Review
Fans of Fall Out Boy do not like the group’s 2008 release Folie a Deux. The reasons are numerous and sort of obvious. The album was largely theatrical, employing uses of strings and synthesizers, and a good bit removed from their breakthrough pop masterpiece From Under the Cork Tree. There is also the unavoidable factor...
Stromkern “Light it Up” Review
Hybridization can be a blast. Remixing is all about mixing genres, usually dance and rock or dubstep with Muse. Bands and artists compose entire careers around hybrids- merging styles of music to essentially create another whole genre. This is sort of how evolution works in the animal kingdom. A type of create becomes separated, and over time, a...
Metallica “Kill Em All” Review
It is really hard to look at Metallica without looking at METALLICA. This means looking at Metallica as thrash-metal pioneers, as opposed to a bunch of dicks who hate pirating, put jizz on album covers, released the regurgitated and recycled mega-infection St. Anger, and say really stupid pompous crap in interviews. Metallica have become a...
Lou Bega “Ladies and Gentleman” Review
I had absolutely no intention of ever listening to an album by Latin artist Lou Bega, until someone got the genius idea of requesting a review, and I got the even better idea of following through. This is Lou Bega’s second album Ladies and Gentlemen. Bega is most famously known for the 90′s hit Mambo...
Avenged Sevenfold “City of Evil” Review
I see why people like Avenged Sevenfold. I do. I am not one of those who thinks that Avenged Sevenfold were once a really great band, but have changed their sound so much once they became popular, they have devolved into poseur psuedo-experimentals, putting piano ballads in place of metal riffs to the delight of no...
MC5 “Kick Out the Jams” Review
A flash in the past- representation of an era- MC5 did more in 39 minutes than many others who had decades (and the undeserving notion of being the first). Let’s make this clear- if punk rock had a beginning, it was in the blistering frenetic evenings of October 30 and 31st in 1968- the two nights which account for...
Senses Fail “Let It Enfold You” Review
Some albums are amazing because they tend to stand the test of time, relegating into a category of supreme legacy- influence- and respect. Very few will consider Senses Fail‘s debut album Let It Enfold You as a legendary amazing album. Reasons for this are obvious. It is hardly even a decade old, for one, and...
Anberlin “Vital” Review
I got a pre-release copy of Anberlin‘s latest album Vital a few weeks ago from front man Stephen Christen himself (I won’t elaborate, it doesn’t matter), but I was told, rather nonchalantly, to not review it until the day of release. This seemed markedly appropriate, and out of respect, the request was respected. So here we are, Anberlin’s sixth...
Reviews by Decade
Check out a full catalog of CultureTease reviews, albums ranging from the 60′s to today. I review albums from multiple genres, never shying away from something that may be foreign. use the search key at the top of the website to search your favorite artists and see if I have what you are looking for. Search...
The Killers “Battle Born” Review
Yawn. I’m sorry. That was a poor opening. I am a bit tired from bearing through The Killers latest album Battle Born for the fifth time. Not fifth time consecutively. I would kill myself. I’m just a little sleepy here…Hum. Um. Ok. Well, Battle Born isn’t some sleepytime album. It is a far cry from...
NOFX “Self Entitled” Review
NOFX are punk rock legends. Now I have a strong suspicion that the band will recoil at this statement. This is largely because they are so obviously in love with PREVIOUS punk rock legends. The Adolescents, Iggy Pop, Black Fag, Suicidal Tendencies, Bad Brains. The list goes on and on, and the vast majority of...
G.O.O.D. Music ‘Cruel Summer” Review
This is not a traditional album. G.O.O.D. Music encompasses a slew of artists under the G.O.O.D. Music record label, ran primarily by the man himself, Kanye West. G.O.O.D. Music is not a supergroup, nor is it anything more than a moniker that features an open and rotating door of artists that are considered, for the time being and perhaps...
Green Day “Uno!” Review
It is sort of odd to hear people praise a Green Day album once again. Let’s back up. Everyone knows Green Day was about one album away from being obscure dated punk rockers, and then politics and grandiose merged together to help create “American Idiot,” perhaps the most ridiculously bloated album ever from 3 dudes...
Yellowcard “Southern Air” Review
It must be a blast to be in a punk rock group. Unless your in the Ramones ( a lot of dying) or The Sex Pistols (a lot of heroin AND dying) or, well, Yellowcard aren’t really that group anyways. But they sure sound to be having a hell of a lot of fun, violins...
Nas “Life is Good” Review
Life is good, huh? For a guy whose greatest output rests comfortably in the 90′s, whose recent contribution to pop culture was a messy divorce, a promiscuous daughter tweeting pics of condoms, and two poorly received solo LP’s, I find a hard time believing life is all THAT good. But then again, I ain’t Nas, and I...
The Gaslight Anthem “Handwritten” Review
There was a time where rock and roll actually meant something. Where bands like the Arcade Fire WOULD have been the biggest things in the world, yet are now regulated to “mainstream or indie” doom. Which are they? Does it matter? Rock and roll was a bit more High Fidelity, and a little less Eddie...
Matisyahu “Spark Seeker” Review
Matisyahu has walked a very interesting path since his major label debut Youth so so many years ago, like circa 2006. Since then, he’s been steadily releasing material and honing a sort of style that seems to culminate with Spark Seeker. Musically, Spark Seeker does not particularly surprise me. Firstly, the album’s dance sensibility is only made more sense in coming off his 2009...
The Early November “In Currents” Review
The Early November’s absence from the music scene really hasn’t been all that long, considering what the respective band members have accomplished- every single one involved with some musical project- a handful of albums to their collective credit- and of course the fact that their last formal time together culminated in the release of a...