Album Reviews

Holocene Gave Local Electronic Artists a Pack of Samples and 48 Hours to Make Songs for a Fundraising Compilation

Going In isn’t just a fundraising effort—it’s an elegy for live music in Portland. The songs are structured in a loose arc that simulates the trajectory of a night at the club.

Hear This: Five Albums by the Recently Departed

Lest their memories fade quickly—and to provide the proper context for listeners who might be unfamiliar with the work of artists that have left us recently—here’s where to start paying tribute.

After Recording Her First Album for Columbia Records With Alex Turner, Portland’s Alexandra Savior is Stepping Out on Her Own

There’s something about the holidays that makes Alexandra Savior write sad songs.

Shadowlands’ First Album With a New Lineup is Their Most Cohesive Yet

Portland post-punk outfit Shadowlands’ third LP, 003, was born out of personal and professional strife.

The Shivas Find New Momentum on an Album About Malaise

The Shivas’ new album, “Dark Thoughts,” a strident Tender Loving Empire debut, represents a shift. It’s 40 minutes and 13 songs’ worth of catharsis and, more than any previous Shivas release, offers a snapshot of the band.

Y La Bamba’s New EP is the Portland Band’s Biggest Reckoning Yet

On the two releases the band has put out this year, Mendoza has begun to use the project to express more directly what she’s been trying to overcome as a queer Latinx artist in the Pacific Northwest.

Reyna Tropical’s New EP is Dedicated to an Environmentally Threatened River in Columbia

The music of Sol y Lluvia is so vivid, it’s practically scenic.

Cat Hoch’s Debut Album Blends Psych Rock with ’80s Dance Pop

The future of Hoch’s sound feels less clear now than it ever did, but her keen songwriting chops have rendered that immaterial

Blue Tomorrows’ Debut Album Captures the Feeling of Being Young and Adrift

The lyrics capture the time between adolescence and adulthood, between nostalgia over what has been and daydreams of what could be. Each song fades into the next, creating an immersive soundscape for listeners to get lost in, and to get lost to. On “Sonoma Mt. Rd. (Deep Summer),” Nienaber sings, “Burn the map I don’t need/’Cause you said I’d know where to go.”

On Their New Album, Sleater-Kinney Faces Political Turmoil and Intraband Uncertainty

The Center Won’t Hold begins to feel like an album that replaces the personal with the political, though it’s less a plea for change and more of a badge of suffering. Maybe Tucker and Brownstein do really feel like obscene, broken bodies dragging themselves through an obscene, broken world. They’re hardly the only ones. But increasingly, it seems as though pain and torment have become synonymous with relevance and authenticity, which is not always accurate and often shitty

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