Though the Raincoats are inextricably linked to their influential flag-fliers, they’ve come to be seen as a manifestation of the post-punk era where communal expression trumped star-power; and song structure was unchained from the three-chord gob-fest of the male-dominated punk cadre.
With Myths 004, the finished product isn’t an album in the standard sense, but it isn’t meant to be. What it plays like is an open canvas, where two artists are free to brandish their tools as they wish, playing off the other’s adventurous spirit.
Purple Mountains is a record written by a man with his back against the wall. While it’s truly hard to not feel for Berman on this album, it’s a small consolation that he retains his singular brand of irony at times. Always morose and caustic, Berman returns more devastating than ever.
Tony Molina makes records that sound like they’re coming from someone who consumes lots and lots of music himself. He’s staked his allegiance to the Beach Boys’ Friends and worn his love for hardcore with a pin on his jacket pocket.
On Reward, Le Bon’s experiments flourish and take shape without ever coming across as too busy. At ten tracks, the album’s immediacy pours forth with grace and sophistication. At the center of it all is a balanced Le Bon, a craftswoman constructing 43-minutes of an LP to burrow oneself in.
Ty Segall & Freedom Band tear, and on Deforming Lobes, their latest live LP, they deliver more of the thunderous, gut-mangling hard rock that has compelled them to keep boiling out jam after jam.
Chris Cohen has yet to bring the man behind some of the most modestly stunning earworms of recent years into question. Enter his recent self-titled LP, which delivers on just what the eponymous title suggests: a streamlined personal statement that ties a neat knot around the previous two projects.
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