There’s something like three inches of ice coating my driveway this morning, a thick, angry rime of winter caking the windshield of my car.  As I listen to the drone of a thousand ice scrapers (shck, shck, shck), clearing the way for the morning commute, I find my mind wandering to thoughts of warmer locales.  [...]

Sometimes I’d like to think US music bloggers are the craftiest of the bunch worldwide.  We’ve got our ears to the field, tilted toward the vast expanses of global music of merit, right? Every now and again, and perhaps I’m simply admitting my own individual oversight, we catch wind of a noteworthy outfit that’s been [...]

Things I would do immediately if elected president:
1.) Deport Bob Costas, preferably to someplace really unpleasant.  His smarminess at the Olympics reflects badly on all of us.  A vote for me (in a fictional presidential election) would be a vote against Bob Costas, professional douchebag.
2.) Posthumously appoint Richard Prior as Minister of Education.  (Gainin’ on [...]

Eight seconds in to Closer, the new release by San Francisco pop duo Camp Out, and you are immediately dispatched to the mid-90s. And not just the mid-90s, but a very particular time and head space of that bygone decade: the girl rock that charged both coasts, but particularly the left one, and frequently dominated [...]

There is little we Dicks love more than bringing our readers new and exciting music that they can’t hear anywhere else. Add to that the opportunity to premiere an ambitious, impressive, and eminently digable track by a disarmingly talented and novel artist, and, well, you have a red letter day in Citizenland.
Given that brief explanation, [...]

I don’t have to say much about our deep institutional love for Dr. Dog at this point.  I’m about as excited for their soon to be released ANTI debut, Shame, Shame as I am for any other record this year.  The first taste of the record bodes well.  “Shadow People” is a little less ornate [...]

Hello internet.  I’m just popping in midweek with a couple of things that are too excellent to hang onto until the weekend.  (This of course implies that I have excellent content for Saturday in my back pocket, that my cup overfloweth.  Let’s assume that to be true.)
First, the good folks at Sub Pop have made [...]

When the host of releases this week center around infectious vibes and pop nuance, it’s refreshing to look a bit backward to hit the pile of albums and stumble upon a collection of tracks that sparks that slight bit of sludge so necessary in coping with the incessant onslaught of snow here inCleveland. We’re cave [...]

There is a self-congratulatory element of Stephin Merritt’s work, the kind of which is either explained by fundamental insecurity or mind-blowing self-confidence. Either way, whether it is the heavy-handed ironosincerity of his most recent album titles (69 Love Songs offers just that, while Distortion is a collection of distorted songs and I is an album [...]

For folks that wander into The Album Leaf with not a lot of back-catalog knowledge, it’s probably important to note the fact that frontman Jimmy Lavalle has been around for the better part of a decade, long before it was chic to lock oneself into an artistic cave and bang out albums as a solitary [...]

WARNING: I’m no record label executive, so you might want to go get your salt shaker before reading the rest of this review.
You know that indie rock band that could? The one, after making increasingly brilliant and successful records starts to earn its independence from the A&R handlers and veto-wielding producers that may have shaped [...]

Austin based quintet Balmorhea makes really good instrumental music; that’s maybe an overly simple way to start a review, but it is totally true.  More erudite reviewers would cite a slew of modern composers that the band draws influence and inspiration from. (A review of their 2008 effort, River Arms, on P4K referenced Stravinsky, Keith [...]

The best part about this particular review is that it doesn’t need to be a long one.  We’re some verbose mofos here and we tend to dig pretty deeply into our album reviews.  Every now and again, an album without a lot of necessary analysis enters the picture, and in some cases, this is extremely [...]

We are always excited when we have the opportunity to be the first to debut a new track from a band that we love, and this new single from the Athens quartet, Twin Tigers, is no exception. If you are hip to the band and have read anything about them previously, you are probably aware [...]

Something is pretty awesome in the state of Denmark. This ham-fisted MacBeth reference is doubly pertinent for the city of Aalborg, the nation’s fourth largest city (after Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Odense) and, according to Professor Wikipedia, the one designated as “The Paris of the North.” There are a lot of other facts I could include [...]

Recently, French Kissing sent us an mp3 of their new single “Oh Suzanne”. At first, French Kissing seemed like a provocative name for a grade-school band. A few moments later, I came across the above photo being used as their avatar on Myspace.  Since I’m part of a generation jaded by internet porn (where do [...]

(Editor’s note:  That’s a picture of Phillip IV, an actual king of Spain.  I am aware that the song I’m posting today is an extended metaphor and not a legitimate wish from The Tallest Man on Earth to be the actual monarch of an Iberian nation.  However, it is a rare occasion that I can [...]

Live music is important.  Records are great (obviously) because they allow for the mass distribution of art.  But.  There’s no perfect substitute for a really good live show.  At their best, records are (often) just pale imitations of live music.  There are artists who subvert that notion and are still wildly successful (Grizzly Bear comes [...]

I entered this world on June 18, 1978 to a first-time mother and father who had just wrapped up their senior year of college.  Two relatively green and excited kids took the plunge and married just before my birth, and entered their lives together with only the earnest naivety young love affords.  I still occasionally [...]

Some of you may have noticed that we added a new feature to the site recently in the form of a page that allows readers to submit their own tracks for review. We added this in hopes of uncovering even more new music for our readers that we may not have otherwise found through our [...]