To fully understand the intricate beauty of Chinese shoegaze band Default’s album titled “California Nebula,” you simply need to understand the history of the shoegaze genre. One does not need to understand Mandarin in order to understand the scope and message of the album.     Believed to have emerged from the United Kingdom’s underground psychedelic rock sound, shoegaze has become a defining genre in mainstream music. The term “shoegaze” refers to band members gazing at the

What if you combined sweeping ambient soundscapes with the denseness and fuzziness of shoegaze? The answer lies in Lovesliescrushing, who has managed to create the perfect marriage between the two over their entire career. One of their best albums, “Xuvetyn,” turns 30 years old in 2026, and I am here to say that it is every bit as forward thinking as it was upon first release.  “Valerian (Her Voice Honeyed)” fades into a song that slides from airiness to deepness like being u

Since Oneohtrix Point Never’s (OPN) new album “Tranquilizer” is releasing tomorrow, I thought it would be a good idea to write about another album of his in anticipation. When finding an album  I knew would be a good introduction to him as well as be a great listening experience in general, I looked no further than “Replica.”  When I first heard “Replica” and OPN in general, it was from listening to a different album from one of his aliases. Chuck Person’s “Chuck Person’s Ecc

Half jokes and quarter smiles With his 2024 release “Manning Fireworks,” alt-country-rock-ish artist MJ Lenderman paints portraits and vignettes of characters both pathetic and vicious through lines equal-parts witty and sincere.   On his fourth studio album, Lenderman takes note of the tired Southern stereotypes illustrated in the typical country song – men obsessed with living simple and religious, brazenly beer drunk alone, wondering where their lost love went – and both s

Taylor Swift’s new album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” has garnered some pretty polarizing opinions from all fans. The general consensus:...

While I love all types of music, I generally gravitate towards the pop music genre more than others. When Sabrina Carpenter announced she...

When it comes to music taste, I really do not have a preferred genre. I listen to pop, country, hip hop, R&B and jazz, which is a lot of...

What can be said about “private music,” Deftones’ 2025 album release? Literally, it’s near perfect. Maybe it is just perfect. The...