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Review: San-Fran experimental rockers Oxbow dedicated their eighth album Love's Holiday to familial renewals, marking the point at which guitarist Niko Wenner's two children were born shortly after his father's death. Despite the immediate inspirations, the album also cycles through many of the more all-encompassing kinds of live humans may encounter, from romantic to tragic. We hear the band segue through gargantuan plains of looping guitar and reverb-drenched vocals from lead vocalist Dan Adams; ostensibly, it sounds closer to an exploration of grief than commonly received ideas of "love", although relatively few pop-cultural ideas of love keep it real enough to reflect the strife that comes with it.

Review: On their latest album Alchemy For The Dead, post-rock "sludge-gazers" Spotlights (Sarah Quintero, Mario Quintero, Chris Enriquez) collide heavy riffs and apocalyptic murmurations, evoking an unstoppably crunchy armaggedon. The album is described as a contemplation of mortality and a tribute to the band's late friend and collaborator, Caleb Scofield of the bands Cave In and Zozobra. A divine, druidic sense of the end of times is felt throughout, whether on the squeezing feedback and distortions of 'Sunset Burial' or the final countdown that is 'Ballad In The Mirror'.