#album review

ALBUM REVIEWL.A. WITCH Play With Fire on Sophomore LP

This year, Girls Rock Santa Barbara has developed The Summer of Love Internship, its first ever paid internship for teen girls and gender-expansive youth, which allows the organization to continue to provide a safe, collaborative environment in which to encourage lifelong skills like positive peer...

Girls Rock Santa Barbara

REVIEWLauren Ruth Ward Burns Hot on Vol. II

She always has. Her vocal lashes are cut from a Janis Joplin cloth, and her configurations are nearly as gutsy, raw, and unruly. Ward’s second album, Vol. II, is a real soul-shocker of a collection ─ she douses musical gasoline all over the...

Bee Scott

HIGH NOTESListening to Dirtwire's 'Electric River' on Mushrooms

Dirtwire photo by Mika Gurovich. Over Thanksgiving break, I found myself with a friend in a San Francisco hotel room on a rainy day without any plans. I also found myself with a bag of cubensis mushrooms another friend of mine had just grown, as well as the Soundcloud link Dirtwire's latest album,...

Annie White

MAIN - Boy Scouts - Photo Credit Ulysses Ortega 6

PLAYING THE BAYBoy Scouts Artfully Embraces Resignation on New LP Free Company

Taylor Vick of Boy Scouts. Photo Credit: Ulysses Ortega It’s hard not to heavily associate new music with the time of year that you first heard it, where a few notes or a chorus can propel you back in time to months before, your eyes and ears filling with the sounds of springtime or the...

Sophia Vaccaro

ALBUM REVIEWMabel Falls Flat With High Expectations

Like many, I sat down to listen to emerging UK pop artist Mabel’s debut full-length High Expectations with just that, high expectations. The songstress comes from remarkable music industry stock, the daughter of Swedish singer-songwriter and rapper Neneh Cherry and British songwriter and producer...

Mandy Brownholtz

ALBUM REVIEWThe Heartfelt Nostalgia of Tony Molina's Tapes from San Mateo County

Bay Area indie artist Tony Molina has always had either foot in two worlds, which is perhaps the only obvious observation one might make about him. He maintains deep ties to the punk and hardcore scenes in which he cut his teeth, having played with bands like Healer, Caged Animal, and Bone Sickness...

Mandy Brownholtz

PLAYING THE BAYSlumped Prepares for Summer Onslaught with Self-Titled LP

What do we do with the remnants of ourselves left over from winter and spring? If you’re heartbroken or enraged or otherwise blasted to bits, the long, sun-soaked hours...

Sophia Vaccaro

ALBUM REVIEWCommon Holly "Playing House"

It is how we pantomime maturity, and begin to learn self-preservation, domestic upkeep, and the treatment of others. From pretending to prepare a meal, to sweeping the tree house, this form of...

Madison Bloom

ALBUM REVIEWHappyness "Write In"

My favorite (contemporary) British trio is back with a follow up to their 2015 debut Weird Little Birthday. If Happyness have given me anything aside from ace interview material and two years of fabulous music, they have laid the groundwork for...

Madison Bloom

Charly Bliss - Press Photo by Jacqueline Harriet

ALBUM REVIEWCharly Bliss "Guppy"

They haven’t escaped comparisons to bands like Veruca Salt or Letters To Cleo, and they won’t here...

Mandy Brownholtz

ALBUM REVIEWFuture Islands "The Far Field"

“It’s not easy, just being human, and the lights and the smoke and screens,” sings Sam Herring on Future Islands’ latest record, The Far Field. It isn’t. Our lives are a sloppy amalgamation of highs and lows, love and hate, obsession and apathy. In essence, this record faces this reality head on:...

Mandy Brownholtz

ALBUM REVIEWSorority Noise "You're Not As _____ As You Think"

Hartford emo band Sorority Noise released their third full length record, You’re Not As _____ As You Think, this week. It’s so self-aware it’s like the Scream of emo records. It’s formulaic as far as pop punk records go, but the band almost points it out ironically, trying to hedge out a...

Mandy Brownholtz