CD Review

Artist: The Autumn Portrait

Album: The Design Is Over

Release Date: October 5^th, 2010

Reviewed By Alexander Hutt

Usually when I give a 2 and half stars rating it means that the band in question is perfectly average, and that’s the case here with The Autumn Portrait. Out of Vancouver BC, Freddie Mojallal (vocals, guitar), Patrick Jacobson (bass) and Sean Lavoy (drums) fit into that pile of indie rock bands that sound like most of the genre.

Artist: Adele

Album: 21

Label: XL, Columbia

Release Date: January 11, 2011

Reviewed by: Lindsay Marshall

A good album is one that you listen to many times. A great album is one that you listen to once a day, and still don’t get sick of. And Adele’s amazing new album, 21, is one that will take you to a different place and time, as you empathize with her soulful words and sweet melodies; you will listen to every track, and feel the emotion pouring from every delicate, beautifully-written word. It is the kind of album that could be named one of the best of the year, and definitely Adele’s best yet.

Adele Adkins, best known simply as Adele, released her debut album 19, in January 2008, and was nominated the next year, and won, Best New Artist and Best Female Vocal Performance at the Grammys. The album was titled as such because it was the age in which she wrote, which was the same case with 21.

CD: Blessed

Artist: Lucinda Williams

Label: Lost Highway

Release Date: March 1, 2011

Reviewed By Evan Dowbiggin

For several years Lucinda Williams has been hailed as an ideal example of how genuinely artistic country music songwriting can be. Like with any genre, there is a vibrant underbelly where the performances hit deeper than what the radio tends to choose to play. Lucinda's Country & Western world was and has never been solely about cheating, hurting, pickup trucks and being God-fearing anyway. In short, it's too multi-dimensional to be up for CMAs each year. The Nashville establishment, as it always has, still shies away from embracing heart-worn tales of life, that pioneers like Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle and Lucinda herself wrote/write about- instead relying on the lyrical and musical styles of top 40 pop's power ballads and generic rock tunes, only masquerading them in fiddles, pedal steel guitars, twangy acoustic guitars and southern accents to make them seem "different." 

Album: Angles
Label: RCA Records
Release Date: March 18th,  2011

Reviewed By Keith Wilen

There’s not very many bands that can take a 5 year hiatus in-between albums (a la The Stone Roses - The Second Coming) and still have their core fan base intact awaiting their return. With the constant demand for new music and the easy accessibility to it in this day and age, most audiophiles just simply move on.
 
Since the release of First Impressions of Earth [2006], we saw a handful of solo albums from three fifths of The Strokes, none of which having any real lasting power. The band’s long-awaited 4th album, Angles, displays an obvious slew of new influences, most certainly due to this album being a democratic effort opposed to Julian Casablancas solely taking the lead this time out.