The Shins, "New Slang" I sort of mentally lumped the Shins in with a bunch of other indie bands (like Death Cab) as being "fine, but not for me". Who had the time to differentiate all these bands? It wasn't actually until I found "For...
Tool, "Intolerance" I picked up Tool's first album when it came out, because they kind of ran parallel to bands like Helmet, who I loved. But they never really did it for me, and I fell off them after this album. I think it's just...
400 Blows, "The Ugly Are So Beautiful" There's a ruthless, efficient logic at the heart of 400 Blows. The find their groove, riff, or idea and just hammer away at it. It's not that they're robotic or simplistic or anything, but they recognize that repetition...
Poster Children, "0 For 1" There was a decent sized indie rock scene in Champaign-Urbana in the late 80s/early 90s, with Hum, the excellent and forgotten Steakdaddy Six, Honcho Overload, and the Poster Children all emerging to varying levels of success. Of that group,...
Yo La Tengo, "Raw Power" Yo La Tengo Is Murdering The Classics is a compilation of Yo La Tengo's fundraising appearances for WFMU where the band plays whatever songs are requested. You can usually tell when it's a song they're more familiar with than others,...
