Reznor has not only ensured Nine Inch Nails remains a prosperous project but has also found in cinema a toll-free creative refuge, broadening his sonic horizons and finally achieving a serene peace with himself after the ghosts that birthed The Downward Spiral and the struggles suffered after The Fragile.
Their sixth studio album, “These Killing Times”, stems from a sense of hopelessness in the face of a global landscape stifled by wars, crises, and the loss of guiding beacons; yet, rather than wallowing in pain, it opens the door to building a kind of shared refuge.
The year was 1992 in Seattle. While the world gazed, dazzled, at the epicenter of grunge with its defined aesthetic and its supposed anti-rockstar apathy, on the city’s fringes, another kind of creature was brewing, more complex, fragile, technical, and above all, introspective.
The Tubs are up for it. Admitting you’re a mediocre vocalist in a song isn’t the most appealing strategy in the world for a growing band, yet Owen Williams begins The Tubs’ new work this way, displaying a rawness and a sense of self-destruction that is shocking given the level of praise they’ve already garnered … Read more
The Inkwell is the quarterly post where we compile albums we hadn’t highlighted yet, but which are highly recommended additions to your musical radar.
Rodeo cowboy, actor, songwriter, bourbon brand owner, and occasional surfer. We don’t know if these are enough credentials to introduce Ryan Bingham, but they certainly add substance to an enviable musical biography. Bingham is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Americana and roots music. Since his debut with Mescalito (2007), he has developed … Read more
Marking its twenty-fifth anniversary, Wilco’s fourth studio album stands not only as the creative peak of the project led by Jeff Tweedy but also as the definitive testament to a band disintegrating in real time—only to find overwhelming beauty in the ashes of its own destruction.
In this new release, Chat Pile move away from simply emulating the formula that elevated them among the noise and sludge faithful, choosing instead to assimilate their hallmarks and project them into a more nuanced, claustrophobic, and desolate terrain.
The appreciation of a piece is often an act of empathy: to reflect and delve into it, one must put oneself in the shoes of the people who created it and contextualize the fruit of their labor in a specific moment in space-time. That is why the same creation can be interpreted in different ways, … Read more
Brandon Flowers had no previous standing in the world of country; in Thrasher, Flowers breaks with his past, both with The Killers and with his first two solo albums. Personally, neither the Nevada band nor Flowers’ solo work has been, let’s say, my cup of tea, so I don’t even know why I listened to the album in the first place. But what a great (random) decision.