Author Archives: Max Heilman
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REVIEW: Great Lake Swimmers ride The Waves, The Wake into new territory
Few Canadian folk rockers have a level of credibility comparable to Toronto’s Great Lake Swimmers. Largely the brainchild of lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Tony Dekker, the band has spent the past 15 years earning international…
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ALBUM REVIEW: Tirzah finally graces the London underground with Devotion
Despite her lack of albums released, Tirzah has remained a potent force in the London underground dance music scene for much of the 2010s. Her mixture of glitch pop, trip-hop and house music is both remix-worthy…
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10 Outside Lands 2018 under-the-radar acts you shouldn’t miss
Since 2008, concertgoers in the Bay Area and beyond have carefully planned out their Outside Lands itineraries. With numerous music stages, the Barbary comedy tent, wacky culinary GastroMagic stage, pop-up performances (that throw a wrench…
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Tuesday Tracks: Your Weekly New Music Discovery – Aug. 7
Every week, there’s a plethora of new music at our fingertips. Artists on platforms such as Spotify and Bandcamp are plentiful, and the radio offers a steady deluge of new singles, but who has time to…
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REVIEW: The Body bludgeons ear drums at The Echo
LOS ANGELES — Petrifying Portland sludge metal duo The Body brought its decimation to The Echo Tuesday. The performance came as a stark reminder of its primitive foundation, primally executed and terrifyingly brutal. Lee Bufford’s…
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Daryl Palumbo of Glassjaw reconciles the band’s past
It only made sense for Glassjaw and Quicksand to hop on the same wave of renewed attention for a U.S. tour. Both influential New York hardcore acts released long-awaited comeback albums last year. “It definitely was…
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ALBUM REVIEW: Pram makes beautifully surreal return with Across The Meridian
Birmingham’s Pram has held its ground within the most unfathomable regions of rock and pop music since its inception in 1988. Multi-instrumentalists Sam Owen, Rosie Cuckston, Matthew Eaton (not RIFF’s writer), Max Simpson and Harry…
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ALBUM REVIEW: Birds In Row top themselves with We Already Lost The World
Melodic hardcore stems from hardcore’s expansion of emotion beyond its base in primitive anger. Birds In Row take full advantage of their impassioned spectrum of emotion and dynamics. The French trio’s 2012 debut full-length, You, Me…
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ALBUM REVIEW: Deafheaven uproots with Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Sunbather made Deafheaven the Metallica of post-black metal in 2013, bringing mainstream awareness to the trend of melding black metal, post-rock and shoegaze. The Bay Area quintet has found acclaim by assuaging strangled shrieks and…
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Q&A: Talos embraces the eccentricities of his Irish indietronica
It’s been just under a week since Irish songwriter Eoin French dropped a video for the second half of the “Odyssey” story on his 2017 debut album, Wild Alee. While the song is spellbinding enough in its…
