a soundtrack to leap day.

On this 29th day of February, I present my favorite albums of the month, listed by artist. I call these my “nubbin” reviews:

• Boris / Pink - Pummeling garage rock, Japanese-style. Unbelievably dense, super lo-fi and totally amped-up.
• Captain Beyond - Classic ’70s rock at its psychedelic best.
• Don Caballero / American Don - Exuberant, jazzy and strange instrumental rock that’s like nothing you’ve ever heard.
• Earth / Pentastar: In the Style of Demons - Stoner metal without the aggression, with compositions so subtle and minimalist that they attain a stately grace through distorted repetition.
• Electric Wizard / We Live - The perfect soundtrack to your vintage B-horror movie collection, and the ultimate marriage of groove-heavy blues jams, clean singing and the heaviest doom metal riffs imaginable.
• Jucifer / I Name You Destroyer - A beautiful mess of the thickest sludge metal, ethereal girl-pop and everything between. Who knew that such impossibly massive guitar riffs and madcap drumming would mix so well with such airy, pretty vocals?
• Slint / Spiderland - The granddaddy of post-rock records, before the genre ditched vocals and punk stylings in favor of derivative pretentiousness. A still-fresh revelation that’s atmospheric and mysterious, yet still rocks.

Enjoy the samples, and happy leap year!

-Derrick