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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Album Review: Ian Cooke – The Flight I Flew

January 1, 2018

Denver music scene icon/Greeley kid Ian Cooke leaves us with a night-sky full of memories after 15 years. The Flight I Flew is an homage to his 2007 debut The Fall I Fell which put him on the cello-based prog-folk map in Colorado. There’s a map for that, right? The new album, allegedly written under starlight exclusively, parallels the vastness of the cosmos with that of love lost and found, released upon Cooke’s end as a Colorado resident this fall.

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