It's an album that shows McCaughan & co. pushing forward, building on both the previous album (Portastatic's first as an official group) and Mac's film soundtrack work.  Full text...

Can we finally stop calling Portastatic a side project now?   Full text...

Muscular, overdriven guitar pop coexists with winding oboe solos, strings underline wry laments and chamber music intervals collide with breathy Brazilian samba rhythms.  Full text...

McCaughan, still singing in the timbre of a pre-pubescent boy, is so wordy on opener "Sour Shores" that it's hard to discern the point. "Black Buttons" has him lilting over gently strummed guitars and buzzy atmospherics. An ode to an obscure American painter, "I'm in Love (With Arthur Dove)," gets things rocking more, sounding like a track off Yo La Tengo's Fakebook.  Full text...