Reviews — Sam Small

Clairo - Charm

Clairo once turned Radio City Music Hall into a living room. It was a cozy and casual scene; two alpine lamps arched a dim but warm spotlight. All along the stage floor were large, pear-like lanterns glowing a syrupy amber. A seven-piece band was spaced evenly across a raised platform while Clairo was leveled, centered and singing as if she had personally invited all 6,000 attendees herself—as if the stage was one big conversation pit and she was in the middle, telling a story.

Paste Magazine

Dehd - Poetry

You can assign any sort of “indie rock” classification to Dehd and you’d probably be right. Jason Balla’s guitar rides the reverberated wave of surf rock; bassist and vocalist Emily Kempf applies both a rockabilly and post-punk affectation; drummer Eric McGrady, using just a floor tom, snare, drum machine and tambourine, harnesses the raw zest of early garage rock. They’re shoegaze! But less obstructed. They’re Jesus and the Mary Chain! Minus all the gain and distortion. Yes, yes, yes and, also, yes.

Paste Magazine

Faye Webster - Underdressed at the Symphony

A Faye Webster live show often includes a yo-yo performance interlude and a cover of the Pokemon theme song. On stage, she’s dressed in a cobalt blue jumpsuit, a tennis visor and some sneakers. Guitar in hand, there is this ridiculous-yet-comforting quality about her, like a well-worn gag T-shirt. She’s like someone you’re assigned to work with on a group project. You have little in common, yet you talk with ease; the conversation is familiar and playful, but not without meaning. So, when she mentions she’s in a band, you go to see her show.

Paste Magazine

The Smile - Wall of Eyes

Supergroups come and then, almost immediately, they go. Like The Traveling Wilburys or Blind Faith, these bands are usually a fraught, experimental lark—and a rather short-lived one at that. Seldom does this alchemy result in artwork worth hanging onto, but when it does, the group subsumes the original nuclei and mutates into a new element, indefinitely. So when The Smile announced Wall of Eyes, their second album in under two years, I’m sure a mass hysteria circulated among zealots within the r/radiohead community. Radiohead hasn’t released a new album in eight years, and only two over the last 13—and for many purist fans, this “side-project” seemingly becoming the main act is no cause for celebration; it’s a sign to start prepping for doomsday.

Paste Magazine

Lana Del Rey - Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd

There was, once, a long pathway with mosaic ceilings and caramel tiles lined along both the floors and terracotta walls of the underground entrance into the shore in Long Beach, CA. This was the tunnel under Ocean Blvd., a promenade animated by vendors and screaming children with floaties on their arms and sunscreen blotches on their noses. Although the tunnel was sealed off in the mid-’60s, the architecture still stands.

Under The Radar Magazine

Big Joanie - Back Home

In 2020 UK punk trio Big Joanie crafted the impossible: a cover of Solange’s ‘Cranes In The Sky’ that rivals the brilliance of the original. While Solange pirouettes inside dream-like harmonies and slow-cooked drums, Big Joanie has their eyes narrowed, brows furrowed, as gained-up guitars lift the chilling escapist lyrics off the track like a plane creeping down the tarmac, inching away, away, away...

Clash Magazine

NNAMDÏ – Please Have A Seat

Clash Magazine

NNAMDÏ is in the business of self-reflection. This might appear premature for an artist whose recent 2020 success with LP ‘BRAT’ brought him on the road with Sleater-Kinney, Wilco, and black midi. Yet, his new LP Please Have A Seat is somewhere around his twentieth solo project. His scroll of a resume includes drumming in math-rock project Monobody, playing bass in Lala Lala, and co-owning Sooper Records, so it’s no surprise he’s a bit fatigued.

Alex G – God Save The Animals

Under The Radar Magazine

It’s “too late to slow down now” sings Alex Giannascoli on “Mission.” Better known as indie-rock dignitary Alex G, the Philly musician’s creative output feels limitless, certainly, expeditious, with the release of his ninth album, God Save the Animals, in just 12 years. But, this fast evolution is daunting; he’s “run the whole world round”—presumably troubling for such a famously reserved, demure icon that remains in his home state since it’s “comfortable and cheap as fuck.” And when you’re perhaps one of the best examples of the ideal DIY to major label success stories, it’s nearly impossible to “stay out of the heat,”….

Lorde – Solar Power

Under The Radar Magazine

It’s hard to believe that it was over eight years ago when 16-year-old Ella Yelich-O’Connor (aka Lorde) re-tuned the Top 40’s frequency with her slow tempo, finger snapping, practically a cappella anthem, “Royals,” a track that boldly condemned pop music as an exclusive, opulent facade. It’s ironic: one of the best-selling pop songs of all time essentially dunked on every corny, soulless Max Martin-made track that had dominated the pop world over the last few decades. Listen, this New Zealand teenager demanded, for the other 99% of the world: “That kind of luxe just ain’t for us.”