Four-word reviews from CMJ

Didn’t see quite as many bands as usual this year due to other work, but here are the sniglets I wrote for the Times’ ArtsBeat blog:

• Pattern Is Movement: Lumberjack looks, sensitive ululations.
• Princeton: Aww, indie Lauper cover!
• The Lisps: Peppy co-ed pop candy.
• Women: Four boys, strangled chords.
• Oxford Collapse: Snarling, invigorating punk chants.
• Faunts: Bubbly guitars feel weightless.
• Crystal Stilts: Juxtaposition: gloomy and scrappy.
• Lykke Li: Playful, ingenious Swedish glamazon.
• Hayes Peebles: Li’s opening strummer; sympathize.
• Shugo Tokumaru: Haunting, inviting acoustic virtuosity.
• Audrye Sessions: If Radiohead were emo.
• The Dutchess & the Duke: Wistful folky dirges. Inauthentic.
• Jay Reatard: Punksplosive. Go man go!
• The King Khan & BBQ Show: Garage’s essence, wonderfully deviant.
• Mission of Burma: Postpunk will never die.
• Shout Out Out Out Out Out: Electro Edmontonians embrace excess.
• Growing: Two guitars, such din?
• Holyhail: Hate saying “generic,” but ...
• Psychic Ills: Throbbing drones, migraine-loud.
• Sian Alice Group: Ended with apocalyptic crash.

Extended play:

• The Muslims: One-chord surfers. Gnarly.
• Shock Cinema: Potent, dark, tough; unshocking.
• School of Seven Bells: Feminized MBV, perfectly executed.
  
• Pendulum: Glowstickers, you’re easily pleased.

(Acknowledgments.)