Ben Salmon

R.I.P. Tenderhearted, but tough as nails. Super Shots THE PORTLAND QUARTET R.I.P. is a serious heavy-metal band that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Check out their press photo. Taken at SuperShots in the Lloyd Center—Portland’s original green-screen portrait studio, according to the website—it’s a charming combo of tenderhearted and tough as nails. “It is very […]

R.I.P.’s In the Wind is music to drool to.

SAM HUMANS Eyes closed, ears open. Jason Quigley ADVERSITY IS NO FUN when you’re right in the middle of it. That’s just a fact of life. But once you get through tough times, there’s usually good to be gained. Adversity makes you stronger, they say. It can illuminate the need for change, or remind you […]

JOAN SHELLEY Melancholy daydreams. MICHAEL WILSON ON LAST YEAR’S Over and Even, Joan Shelley stitches together a vivid patchwork of distant memories and melancholy daydreams, of anger, longing, and loneliness, and love both poisonous and understated. Intertwined with these deeply human emotions are fragments of the natural world: falling leaves and glowing stars, singing birds […]

Her new record, Over and Even, is subtly potent.

LAURA GIBSON Still trying to process it all. SHERVIN LAINEZ THE CENTERPIECE of Laura Gibson’s new album, Empire Builder, is its title track—a stunning, slow-burning song about the distance between love, loss, and loneliness. Much of it was written while Gibson traveled across the country on Amtrak’s busiest long-distance passenger train, from which the album […]

Andrew Piccone For Pinegrove‘s Evan Stephens Hall, making music is his life’s hub. Everything else is just a spoke in the wheel. “I took [college] seriously, but if I was writing a song I would always prioritize that. Even if I had a homework assignment, if there was a melody running around in my head, […]

THE BODY Hmm. I count TWO bodies. Megan Holmes IT TOOK A FEW TRIES before the Body succeeded in making the grossest pop album of all time. Let’s jump back a bit. When Chip King and Lee Buford entered Rhode Island’s Machines with Magnets studio to record their 2013 breakthrough, Christs, Redeemers, they had no […]