Langhorne Slim, 'Be Set Free' (Kemado)
Earnest troubadour fights corniness to a draw.
By Spencer Kornhaber 10.21.09 1:41 PM
Most alt-country fetishizes cowboy days, but Langhorne Slim’s third full-length does so while swiping tricks from this decade’s best rock bands. The joyful chorus of “Say Yes” could have been shouted by Arcade Fire, while “I Love You, But Goodbye” walks the same line between loveliness and dissonance as Wilco.
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Reigning Sound, 'Love and Curses' (In the Red)
A rocker's manual of maturity, sideburns intact.
By Charles Aaron 10.21.09 1:19 PM
Garage-punk mensch Greg Cartwright has been refining the Reigning Sound's frayed, soulful bleat since the band's 2001 debut (after his rowdier crew, the Oblivians, screeched their last). And here he's at his most tenderly heartworn yet.
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Moritz von Oswald Trio, "Vertical Ascent" (Honest Jon's)
Techno maestros sculpt stunning sonic edifice.
By Andy Beta 10.21.09 1:04 PM
Von Oswald has been at the vanguard of electronic music for almost two decades, remaking German techno into something befitting a supercollider -- spacious, echoing, metalencased -- with Basic Channel, Maurizio, and Rhythm & Sound.
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Gary Higgins, "Seconds" (Drag City)
Lonesome folkie recluse tries to recapture magic.
By David Marchese 10.21.09 12:43 PM
In 1973, Connecticut longhair Gary Higgins recorded Red Hash, a gently gnomic album of post-hippie comedown folk. A subsequent
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The Twilight Sad, 'Forget the Night Ahead' (FatCat)
Droning, bummed-out Scots hit soph slump.
By David Peisner 10.19.09 2:36 PM
The Twilight Sad's 2007 debut album, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, firmly placed them in Scotland's tradition of intensely literate sad bastards (Big Country, Belle & Sebastian, Arab Strap). But the quartet spend most of their follow-up in hiding.
