STACK #144 Oct 2016

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MUSIC REVIEWS

Dillinger Escape Plan Dissociation Having teased this album as the final full-length before a break up (smooth move!) Dillinger Escape Plan are aiming to go out with a bang. And when a band as progressive as Dillinger promise the offering to be their most adventurous to date and employ Converge’s Kurt Ballou to mix, you know you’re in for a mind-melter. Dissociation mostly delivers in every direction. Fugue is an intriguing nod to an electronica avenue the band may very well have journeyed down should they have continued their aural adventures. If this is indeed their final hurrah, then they can rest assured they’ve departed on a frenzied and furious note. No less intriguing than they day they exploded onto the scene with Calculating Infinity . Bravo. (CookingVinyl) Emily Kelly

Conor Oberst Ruminations

Conor Oberst has always made a lot from a little, even as the dark cloud conducting the energy of fellow groups Bright Eyes and Desaparecidos, so what does Ruminations , on which Oberst’s only bandmates are the proverbial guitar and pen, have to prove? Nothing less than that Oberst maintains the self-destructive relationship with pain that made him such an attractive anti-hero. Pouring out of him following a troubled period that saw him return home to Omaha, Ruminations is Oberst at his starkest and most devastating. It’s an enervating document of fear and longing; proof that Oberst is still the king of personal sorrow. (Nonesuch/Warner) Jake Cleland

Jack White Jack White Acoustic Recordings 1998 - 2016 Dylan with better hair and swagger – kinda like the other Beatle/Stone/(insert extremely talented artist of yesteryear here) whom parents warned their daughters about, Jack White is indeed one cool cat. When he’s not trying to put a 3D pianola roll on the moon from his Nashville ye-olde-gadget compound,

he’s pumping out original, deep and engaging music with a performance ability no one can contest. Here’re 18 years of him unplugged, as it were. Stuff you know, stuff you don’t – stuff he found under the bed, stuff that perhaps should stay ‘lost’– but for the majority, this is a stunning testament to his creative urges and sheer talent spread over 26 tracks spanning White Stripes thru to solo. Simplistic genius on Forever For Her , tear-jerking poetry on Ugly As I Seem , or Top Yourself with an intoxicating bluegrass immersion where if you squint just right you'll feel yourself floating down an Appalachian voodoo swamp. He’s a genius – and the bastard knows it. (Third Man/Remote Control) Chris Murray

NOBALLADS NOBULLSHIT NEW STUDIO ALBUM OUT NOW

OCTOBER 2016

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