Casey Kolderup's reviews

Showing 1-30 of 35 reviews
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    4.5/5 stars

    In 2011 I was working in New York City and living in the suburbs. I had my first job doing web programming, though it was all on the backend, a projection of my insecurities after a half-decade of writing C++ programs that ran on OpenVMS. My team was responsible for figuring out how to unify the Java service-based architecture that had begun to spiral out from the original Rails monolith. An API, a "source of truth". My team was made up of slightly more experienced engineers all based out of our Dublin office (a recently-discovered tax haven for US startups), a manager from America who had moved there some years ago ahead of the curve, and me, the dummy at… More

  • by

    3/5 stars

    Apple Music has apparently never given this band's artist profile an editorial pass, so when you navigate to their page it's up to you to figure out what this band's whole deal is across 25 years and (checks notes) 9 listed albums, only 6 of which are actually the canonical original album discography, and that's more manageable, if you know that, right?

    But the best clue that Apple Music offers to its editorial subcontractors is also its most obvious, the "Essential Albums" section that blows up the selected album covers tolike 3 times their normal size.

    "Essential Albums" for Polyphonic Spree, were Apple Music to wake the fuck up (lol jk) and pay for someone spending the five goddamn minutes… More

  • by

    3/5 stars

    I was really prepared to love this, to make it the release this year that I would be most annoying about to everyone I know– Toxe's two Boiler Room sessions are among my favorites of all time, and early single Som En Sol was extremely my jam; followups "Pillow Fight" and "Souvenir" slightly less so but I was still looking forward to hearing it all in context.

    Unfortunately this doesn't really come together, and plenty of cuts on the full length of the thing just don't really hit for me. "Pillow Fight" ended up being my second-favorite track, if mostly for the piano part that sounds like some kind of "what if Michael Nyman did the soundtrack for Microsoft Encarta"… More

  • by

    5/5 stars

    perfect album, perfect autumn vibes, bless Sadurn 🙏 “Icepick” is one of the best final tracks there is and proves you don’t have to build to an epic conclusion to go out on top. (My mind is the fishnet btw; my partner’s is the icepick)

  • by

    3.5/5 stars

    The nature of "novelty music" is an interesting phenomenon related to the way in which we participate as audience to people making music. I tend to be a bit defensive about people dismissing music like the work of They Might Be Giants as "novelty", so what does it mean that I've observed much of the lifespan of The Mountain Goats' discography and wrestled with what I like and don't about the music he's made since the release of Beat the Champ in 2015?

    Almost all of these albums have been marketed as having a "gimmick" of some kind, and I think the temptation has been to treat them as concept albums, but I think in general it's still just... John… More

  • by

    4/5 stars

    As a midwesterner and a Jason Molina obsessive I think the comparisons are maybe a little much (I'm sure he's an influence! They're just very different writers) but I like the record and I'm glad to finally check him out after enjoying his contributions on that latest Waxahatchee album. Favorite track on my first listen: Wristwatch

  • by

    2.5/5 stars

    I love Fred's club-ready stuff, almost everything that gets added to USB is fun, and some of the advance singles from this were encouraging... "adore u" is a little Gap-coded for me but hits in the right mood and obviously "places to be" is a banger. Everything else here sounds like Fred spinning his wheels.

    Complete waste of that Emmylou track but if it gets anyone to listen to Wrecking Ball I could consider that a win? Listen to Wrecking Ball!

  • by

    I was never as "into" Grizzly Bear as some of my contemporaries but if you weren't around the "indie rock scene" in 2009 you should understand that their first two albums were massive; this one got a 9.0 and a "Best New Music" designation from Pitchfork, undoubtedly the American tastemaker of the moment

    Anyway at some point after I got my first iPhone I was putting some work into setting up custom ringtones which you did by creating m4a files, renaming them to 'm4r', importing them into iTunes, then (via a USB-to-30-pin-adapter cable) sending them to the phone. I chose the opening 30 seconds of "Two Weeks" as one of those and it became my morning alarm sound. It… More

  • by

    3/5 stars

    This album hasn't really demanded a ton of repeat listens for me but on listening today it did hit me that the opening two tracks really do kick things off very nicely. Good but vague 90s vibes, would put on when some fellow millennials came over or something... just a little too slick to actually catch my attention most of the time.

  • by

    4.5/5 stars

    I just saw this band live for the first time ever last night after listening to them from the moment they broke basically 20 years ago and I'm still thinking about how if there actually is a cult I can join maybe I'm on board.

    How often, realistically, have I listened to the songs on this album in the past 10 years? Very rarely, but every note from this album was as familiar as a song from a Boys and Girls in America or OK Computer, albums I've listened to so many times, and it all felt so joyous. Gretchen and I both had a great time.

    We got to meet Tim and a couple of the band members after… More

  • by

    1.5/5 stars

    hey sorry I’ll just get out of the way up front that this song is boring dreck. I try to keep an open mind but this lacks the earworm quality of their one big hit and presents nothing of interest instead. okay now:

    what the hell is going on in this music video. there’s gratuitous nudity, mediocre special effects, random violence, and a giant living CGI teddy bear. how did this get made

  • by

    4/5 stars

    This band has been a great reminder for me recently of how truly subjective music (and art in general, I suppose) is and how there's so much out there that I can just not connect with independent of whether it's "good" or not, but keeping an open mind and revisiting a work or an artist at a different point in their career when I am at a different point in my life can be rewarding, fulfilling, joyous, and/or important. And the glory of this particular occasion is that now I have a 5-album discography, and hopefully many more to come, waiting for me. Music... I Recommend It.

  • by

    4/5 stars

    I don't mean to overhype it but I find it's hard to get people I know to listen to instrumental music if it's not by a handful of named artists. If you're into "neoclassical"/electronic music you should really check this out. The violin playing is good but the textures and the layering... sometimes I make the mistake of thinking I can listen to this before going to bed ("oh it's in my Plexamp instrumental collection, perfect to drift off to") but this is an album that grabs your attention. Sounds like Nils Frahm had a bad trip. This is like if the soundtrack to Braid was evil

  • by

    4/5 stars

    The whole "Cheekface schtick" is such a tightrope and it could be incredibly cringe but instead I'm just repeating random lines in my head for weeks at a time. Had the pleasure of making some people aware of this band last weekend and it makes me feel good to have spread the word. I bet the one who writes the lyrics is like a B+ poster (complimentary) and still uses Twitter to this day (derogatory)

  • by

    4.5/5 stars

    I once saw someone on a different music review site compare Craig Finn's lyrical delivery to Lin Manuel Miranda of all people and at that moment I swore to always overcompensate on my Hold Steady reviews online in order to balance out the absolutely wild takes that people are apparently capable of having about this band. This album is a great entry point to the modern catalog; it was what convinced me the band still had life in it after a rough period (and it's no coincidence, imo, that I like it so much when it's the first album since the return of keyboardist Franz Nicolay, who left the band in 2010). "Entitlement Crew" is one of my favorite tracks… More

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