45 minutes or so of ho-hum acoustic guitar pop fiddled out to the steady beat of a drum machine, Jaml is a pleasant enough entry into the solo archives of Gummi Jóns, guitarist for local shitbag pop outfit Sálin Hans Jóns Míns.…

Upon a glance at dictionary.com’s definition of the word boring, this came up: “refer(s) to what is so uninteresting as to cause mental weariness. Boring implies feelings of listlessness and discontent.” However, the condition described therein seems exhilarating and fascinating compared to…

High-velocity trashcan punk from the not-so-gritty streets of suburban Iceland, this scant half-hour of awkwardly political sound-destruction plays and feels tight and well-constructed, but subtleties of direction and vitality are rather lacking, sometimes desperately so. Nevertheless, Morðingjarnir’s debut is a fresh breath…

Foregoing unnecessary complications and abstract pretences, singer/songwriter Lára Rúnarsdóttir’s sophomore release, is at times, an honest, pretenceless portrayal of heartbreak and longing; so honest, in fact, that one is somewhat confused as to why Lára would choose to sing in English on…

Barði Jóhannsson’s accompanying symphonic score to Danish recluse Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 surreal witchcraft documentary is very much Barði, with Bang Gang’s signature brooding melodies and dignified air, albeit taken much farther in their scale and bombast, but still retaining the cold, aloof…

Maybe it’s just my odd sense of patriotism, but Iceland’s entries into the Eurovision Song Contest don’t seem to sexually violate one’s ear as badly as most of the other participants’ ‘songs’. They seem to have a fairly cheap and unpolished quality…

Eighties throwback girl-pop constantly on the brink of collapsing into indie gimmickry, the Besties ‘major’-label debut is made to be listened to religiously in the low-rent New York apartments that birthed the band, but has little lasting value due to the mostly…

Shallow, pathetic and soulless country-pop without a hint of originality, the clichés run riot on this utter tripe, Darrell Scott’s sixth attempt to make music of his own as opposed to being Tim O’Brien, John Cowan or Guy Clark’s studio bitch. Maybe…

Fuzzy, pompous, raunchy to the point of being overbearing and a dead ringer for a punk band covering the theme music to a Gidget movie: Yup, three more of Jon Spencer’s disciples have been allowed to make an album. So, in other…

Cheerfully sweet pop only identifiable as being off-the-beaten-path by the rough-hewn production quality and sometimes obscure subject matter of the lyrics, this is a sometimes intolerably fashionable musical trinket that rescues itself from avant-garde lameness by having the only thing you really…

I fucking swear I’m going to pull a Tsar Nicholas II on these indie/lo-fi/folk motherfuckers soon. I know exactly how I’m going to do it, too: I’ll advertise an album giveaway of rarities by Neil Young, Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen and The…

Shallow, vacant Swede-indie that rather reminds one of the idiotic grin of someone who has recently inhaled far too much marijuana, or that intensely irritating person who always manages to see the bright side of anything that happens. Both of them may…

In typically uncreative fashion, a bunch of classically schooled musicians have banded together to perform their jazzy takes on some modern poetry: Are you thrilled yet? Does this sound like your container of excrement? Well, guess what, you dull, tasteless snob… there’s…