Album Reviews [APOCALYPTIC FOLK] The Builders and the Butchers’ fifth album is largely influenced by the postapocalyptic literature of Cormac McCarthy, and it shows: Western Medicine is just as cheerless as T   More

Album Reviews [ELECTRO R&B] Natasha Kmeto can’t get no satisfaction, and it’s killing her. As a singer raised on both the come-ons of ’90s R&B and the all-night throb of house and trip-hop, the    More

Album Reviews "The mouth is an open wound,” sings Kelli Schaefer on her new EP, and the 28-year-old Portland enchantress lets hers bleed all over these four spectral songs. On 601, Schaefer’s already unado   More

Album Reviews Space Waves bassist-vocalist Sarah Bourland unwittingly sums up the entirety of her band’s second full-length a mere 25 seconds into the song “Underworld”: “Nothing’s quite wrong/But it�   More

Album Reviews [ANTHEMIC ROCK] More often than not, when Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton produces a record, his involvement turns out to be a blessing. His work with James Mercer in Broken Bells imparted an ap   More

Album Reviews [RETRO  DISCO]  Unlike other Portland dance acts, Ancient Heat isn’t simply influenced by disco music: This nine-piece ensemble is a living embodiment of the much-maligned genre. And   More

Album Reviews [MOOD PIECES] There’s no way around it: Swim, the fourth album by local jazz institution Blue Cranes, is as heady and dark as anything the group has done in its six years together. The big cha   More

Album Reviews [PUNK METAL] As the Minutemen’s Mike Watt once observed, a good song title is worth a thousand lyrics. With Gaytheist, that advice is well-heeded: Lest anyone feel fatigued by the bulldozing pun   More

Album Reviews [HEARTBROKEN ROCK] Don’t be fooled by the picture on the cover of Scout Niblett’s new album, a photo-booth shot of a couple in full make-out mode. The heart of It’s Up to Emma is not a rom   More

Album Reviews [POP OPERA] Concept albums demand some suspension of disbelief and a little imagination from the listener. When the story being related is in the realm of epic fantasy, as is the case with Morni   More