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REYAN ALI

Latest Articles

Dessa and Doomtree spread beyond hip-hop roots

Come together and grow
A dash of coincidence provoked Margret Wander's relatively quick entry into Doomtree, the hip-hop crew whose "Wings + Teeth Tour" comes to the Middle East a week from Saturday.

By: REYAN ALI | November 16, 2010

Small Black | New Chain

Jagjaguwar (2010)
Listening to Small Black perform New Chain is like watching lovely but reclusive exotic fish wander around a fortified aquarium.

By: REYAN ALI | November 16, 2010

Catching up with Doomtree's other six

Doomtree are a true collective, with no single voice dominating.

By: REYAN ALI | November 16, 2010

Maserati | Pyramid of the Sun

Temporary Residence (2010)
Knowing what Maserati have been through during Pyramid of the Sun 's creation makes it hard to consider the album on its musical merits alone.

By: REYAN ALI | November 09, 2010

Review: Warpaint | The Fool

Rough Trade (2010)
Last year's Exquisite Corpse made a deserved splash for Warpaint.

By: REYAN ALI | October 26, 2010

Brooklyn’s Matt and Kim just want to have fun

Indie-pop frenzy
Brooklyn's Matt and Kim just want to have fun

By: REYAN ALI | October 27, 2010

None More Black | Icons

Fat Wreck Chords (2010)
Icons demonstrates just how little None More Black have changed over 10 years.

By: REYAN ALI | October 19, 2010

Life on the mend with Austin's Woven Bones

Road out of ruin
"Woven bones" suggests a serial killer trying to consolidate many corpses, or something a bloodthirsty despot might use to fashion a crown.

By: REYAN ALI | October 19, 2010

Suuns | Zeroes QC

Secretly Canadian (2010)
Secretly Canadian (2010)

By: REYAN ALI | October 12, 2010

Post Present Medium (2010)
Over the past three years, Abe Vigoda have made some serious progress, going from California kids making cryptic but pretense-free DIY clatter to the sole opening band on one of Vampire Weekend's national tours.

By: REYAN ALI | September 28, 2010

Swans are not dead

Michael Gira carries on his venomous ways
Let's (sadly) dispel a myth: in Swans' salad days, the New Yorkers might have been a repulsively loud band, but their predilection for brain-thumping volume did not cause audience members to vomit.

By: REYAN ALI | September 28, 2010

Phantogram: Imagination fascination

Delivering synthetic reality
Most PR-ready band photographs do little to enhance their subjects’ character — they’re perfunctory (“These people look like this”) without captivating your eye or your imagination.

By: REYAN ALI | September 14, 2010

Review: Crocodiles | Sleep Forever

Fat Possum (2010)
With remarkable swiftness, Crocodiles tick off all the key characteristics of a band in the thriving lo-fi indie/punk/garage scene.

By: REYAN ALI | September 16, 2010

Dum Dum Girls shift toward a noisy time warp

Pop retrograde
It takes Kristin Gundred about a minute to remember when she created Dum Dum Girls. It was 2008, she determines, but her sound rarely draws comparisons to anything originating within the past decade — or the one before that.

By: REYAN ALI | September 07, 2010

Review: The Thermals | Personal Life

Kill Rock Stars (2010)
What's happened to the Thermals?

By: REYAN ALI | September 07, 2010

Review: The Sword | Warp Riders

Kemado (2010)
Releasing a concept album is one of the diciest games a band can play — there's a thin, frail line between ambitious, intelligent storytelling and haplessly overdoing a bad idea.

By: REYAN ALI | August 31, 2010

Major labels

This Will Destroy You rally against 'post-rock'
This Will Destroy You rally against 'post-rock'

By: REYAN ALI | August 24, 2010

The brothers of Tweak Bird jazz up metal

Grinding it out
Don't be deceived by Tweak Bird's skinny discography.

By: REYAN ALI | August 17, 2010

Darker My Love | Alive as You Are

Dangerbird (2010)
This makes it six years since Darker My Love got their psychedelic labors under way, and it still seems unusual that guitarist/singer Tim Presley is the same Tim Presley of long-defunct hardcore agitators the Nerve Agents.

By: REYAN ALI | August 10, 2010

Miniature Tigers | Fortress

Modern Art/ILG (2010)
Charlie Brand's head is a strange, fanciful place.

By: REYAN ALI | August 04, 2010

Cults | Cults 7''

Forest Family Records (2010)
The duo who make up Cults have profited from having a dearth of info online.

By: REYAN ALI | August 05, 2010

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