Album Review: Isadora Eden – All Night

February 6, 2021

Isadora Eden’s second EP, the vulnerable ‘All Night,’ opens like a dark, reverberated flower in your headphones. Eden’s young, muted alto offers sad solidarity to those who will listen, while she and bandmates Sumner Erhard and Corey Coffman carry her shy messages on the shoulders of stately guitars, dignified drums and echoey atmosphere.

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Single Review: Retrofette – Photogenic

February 4, 2021

2021 is going to see Denver’s best synth pop outfit Retrofette become one of the biggest bands in Colorado. Stripping away the frill and grandeur of modern electronic music, their new single “Photogenic” is a simple yet textured synth number throwing back to groups like Hot Chip and Hercules & Love Affair. It’s clean, simple synth tones lay the groundwork for vocalist Sean Culliton’s cool, sultry mumble-like voice to set the mood.

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Album Review: Pedro The Lion – Phoenix

February 8, 2019

After the release of Pedro The Lion’s 2004 record Achilles Heel, the term “emo” would be weaponised as a slur—by outsiders and longtime acolytes alike—and earnest and plaintive music was largely cast aside for the irreverent, angular, and abstract indie rock that would define much of the next decade. Fifteen years after the band’s last release, hordes of music listeners will gather in front of stages throughout 2019 t(including The Bluebird Feb 10) to see Pedro the Lion in support of its long-anticipated return on Polyvinyl Records.

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Album Review: Anthony Ruptak – A Place That Never Changes

December 5, 2018

In a musical era defined by digital austerity, A Place That Never Changes is a powerful ode to maximalism, a carefully layered production of towering melodies and micro-cacophonies that cede just the right amount of space for Ruptak’s searing lyrical attack. It captures 2018 America’s prevailing feelings of confusion, anxiety and dread.

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