Lav's Music Corner

For this week's rapid-fire reviews, I'm taking a look at 5 records from indie and alternative bands that would have, at one point in their career, been MUST-COVER acts. For one reason or another all of these bands who have material I adore under their belt slipped through the cracks earlier this year, so let's catch up.  Pink Elephant  - Arcade Fire I can be a little bit picky about production, I think everyone knows that at this point. But one thing I normally don't do it let that fact completely dictate my feelings on an album, but I just can't fucking tolerate Pink Elephant . This shift to a more intimate style at the hands of Arcade Fire's dual vocalists had potential, but god, they should have handed the production off to someone who knew what they were doing. Instead of raw in an intimate and vulnerable way, these songs are raw in a grating, outright painful way that clashes with the obvious ambitions of the songwriting.  Take the single "Year Of The ...

Car Seat Headrest is the brain child project of Will Toledo that became a major bandcamp sensation in the early half of last decade. Off the back of this success the band filled out and signed to Matador records where they dropped one of the most critically acclaimed indie rock records of the entire decade in 2016 with Teens Of Denial . After remaking one of their most loved records from their bandcamp era in 2018 the band is back in full swing with their third Matador release.  Review By Lavender: In 2016 Car Seat Headrest was a modest curiosity for me having heard some of their most acclaimed and raw material on Bandcamp and thinking decently of their debut on Matador records in 2015. But 2016's Teens Of Denial  completely blew me away in every regard. I called the song Fill In The Blank  one of my favorite singles of the year and when I was wrapping up this decade I named the album inside my Top 30 and the song The Ballad Of Costa Concordia  at #10, high praise. T...

Car Seat Headrest is the Will Toledo fronted indie rock act who took the indie world by storm in 2016 with the release of their highly anticipated Matador records debut Teens Of Denial  and again in 2018 with the re-release of their critically acclaimed Bandcamp masterpiece concept album Twin Fantasy  re-recorded in studio format. They announced this live album recorded from shows played in the past two years just days before it was released and dropped it without a single. Review By Lavender: I went to see Car Seat Headrest at Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina in September of 2016 and I really enjoyed the show. It was right at the height of Teens Of Denial  craze and I got to sneak right up to the front row to watch Will Toledo and company play a plethora of songs old and new. In the three years since then I have dished out praise to a handful of their new singles and the remastered version of Twin Fantasy  which littered my songs of the ...