Update: B L A C K I E (8/28!) + Tilly and the Wall + Conor Oberst + Michale Graves + The Jealous Girlfriends + More

In addition to the The May Fire review I posted about earlier, there’s a whole pile of other cool stuff up recently. One of the coolest is a review of local H-town-area noise-rapper B L A C K I E; his debut, Wilderness of North America, is an angry, free-jazz-informed combo assault of thick-sounding City of Syrup hip-hop, hazy avant-noise, and pop-culture samples that crushes the eardrums in the best possible way. It’s like CEX if he was less obsessed with Nine Inch Nails, cLOUDDEAD with less drugs, or Mike Ladd with more righteous fury. Oh, and it’s good.

Check out the writeup here, and then you can check out B L A C K I E himself August 28th (as in a week from tomorrow) at Numbers, where he’ll be doing the Free Press Recession Thursdays thing alongside fellow luminaries The Mathletes, The Goods, & Giant Princess. Holy fuck, that’s gonna be a good show; that hadn’t really sunk in ’til now…

Since we tend to not do these things just one at a time (well, not always), we’ve also got two new live reviews up, one of Tilly and the Wall and one of Michale Graves, the latter playing acoustic versions of his Misfits & solo songs at a church/venue up in the Conroe sticks. Read ’em here & here.

Also, there’s a bunch more new reviews, including one of the brand-spankin’-new Conor Oberst solo disc, the (awesome, awesome) Jealous Girlfriends, Cherry Suede, Sputnik Monroe, Athletic Automaton, & more. Full list time:

Live Reviews: Tilly and the Wall; Michale Graves

Reviews:
The May Fire; Conor Oberst; B L A C K I E; The Jealous Girlfriends; Sputnik Monroe; Athletic Automaton; Cherry Suede; Elemental Zazen; The Show Is The Rainbow; The Velocet; & You.May.Die.In.The.Desert.

More coming soon, y’all.