WOAHHH MAN, CHECK THIS OUT!

If you buy the new Sleigh Bells album “Reign of Terror”

on CD or vinyl you get a FREE POSTER!

Look at how awesome this bad boy is:

Leather+studs+cut offs = glamour

Sleigh Bells – Reign of Terror
Sleigh Bells’ second album, Reign of Terror, is plenty loud, but it doesn’t rely on this volume trick. Instead, the duo emphasizes the delicate elements of their sound that mostly got crowded out in the midrange of Treats’ speaker-melting din. Alexis Krauss, the former teen-pop singer turned punk-rock badass, is foregrounded throughout the record, and her roots in Clinton-era bubblegum are more fully integrated with Miller’s heavy riffing. The beats are less indebted to hip-hop this time around and the guitar parts have gone full-on metal, alternating between elemental AC/DC-like hooks and late-80s harmonics. Read the full Review

Sinead O’Connor – How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?
Working with longtime producer John Reynolds and a band of seasoned British modern rockers, on How About I Be Me O’Connor revisits the sonic ground of her indelible first two albums, The Lion and the Cobra and I Do Not What What I Haven’t Got. She melds the winding melodies of the Irish sean nos tradition with classic hip-hop-flavored beats and new-wave guitar and synth lines. Jamaican rhythms are thrown in here and there, like a dash of earthy sorrel. It’s O’Connor’s essential sound, purified and perfected, offering the kind of immersive, shout-along experience that made those early albums feel so necessary. Read the full review on NPR

Cursive – I am Gemini
As their seventh in a discography of unpredictable creativity, where I am Gemini holds back on the discordant brutality of the likes of The Ugly Organ, it ultimately proves to be a much subtler beast. Kasher allegedly thought up the story before sitting down to write out the complete album lyrics sequentially into an angry, melancholy, captivating narrative. It traces the events brought about by the reuniting of twin brothers Cassius and Pollock, who were separated at birth. Are they two, or are they one? Are their opposing good and evil natures two halves of a destructive whole? In a lyrical and musical exploration of the themes of duality, Cursive have come out with a conflicted gem. Read the full review on Drowned In Sound

Islands – A Sleep & a Forgetting
With honesty comes transparency. With lyrics like “I loved a girl and I will never love again,” Thorburn isn’t flirting with subtlety. Instead, the album depends on rich instrumentation and simple delivery to convey meaning. With the album’s narrative arc, more solemn blocks book-end the climactic middle, which has a lot of old Islands nostalgia bleeding through. Tracks like “Can’t Feel My Face” and “Hallways” are reminiscent of the feel-good Vapours. Even Thorburn’s characteristic voice is drastically different from some tracks to others. In “Can’t Feel My Face,” the vocals sound like they’re being projected to the audience, contrasting those of “Same Thing,” the closing track on the album which comprises of a much more soft-spoken Thorburn. Read the full review on Pretty Much Amazing

Amos Lee – As The Crow Flies EP
Blue Note recording artist Amos Lee will release a six-song collection of previously unheard songs as a CD, digital, and 10″-vinyl EP, entitled As the Crow Flies, on February 14th, 2012. The songs were recorded during the sessions for Lee’s critically acclaimed album Mission Bell, which was produced by Calexico frontman and multi-instrumentalist Joey Burns. The tracks on As the Crow Flies are also produced by Burns and feature musical backing by Burns and Calexico drummer John Convertino. Mission Bell debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums and Billboard Rock Albums charts when it was released in January 2011, earning the Philadelphia-born singer-songwriter the highest chart position and best sales week of his career. Read the full review on Exystence.net

Tennis – Young & Old
Simply put, Tennis’s cute gimmick beats every other band in the world’s cute gimmick, in that it seems to come from such a real place. Cape Dory certainly was gimmick, no matter the fact that husband and wife actually spent months on a boat, traveling and writing. The story was just too cute to deny, and going back to that same tone would seem to be too easy and worthwhile to avoid. However, being “the cute band” or “the sailing band” is to be typecast and isolated. The “cute” songs on this album are still the strongest, but the songs that show them stretching their wings are still worthwhile. Read the full review on Consequence of Sound