Exclaim!'s Top 11 EPs of the Year Best of 2017

Published Dec 13, 2017

As our annual rollout of genre-specific album lists for the Best of the Year — which so far has covered the Top 20 Pop & Rock Albums, Top 10...

Angel Olsen Phases

Published Nov 06, 2017

When you have a voice like Angel Olsen's, you can afford to strip away almost all of the instruments, and most of the production value, and...

Beck Colors

Published Oct 12, 2017

Beck has long been lauded as a shape-shifting musical chameleon, but even transcendent, genre-hopping geniuses hit a wall at some point — an...

Beck Talks the "Lightness" of 'Colors,' Hails Kendrick Lamar and Pharrell Williams

Published Oct 03, 2017

On October 13, Beck will finally release his long-awaited followup to 2014's Grammy-winning Morning Phase. Colors, as we referred to it in o...

Beck Goes Through the Pop Prism on New Album 'Colors'

Published Sep 27, 2017

Beck and Pharrell Williams had never worked together until, as Beck now recalls, "four or five years ago," around the same time that he'd be...

Partner In Search of Lost Time

Published Sep 08, 2017

Over the past few years, power-pop outfit Partner's shows quickly became lore amongst Canadian music fans: not only were co-frontwomen Josée...

Five Things James Murphy Wants You to Know About LCD Soundsystem's 'American Dream'

Published Aug 31, 2017

On September 1, LCD Soundsystem will finally drop their comeback album, American Dream. And though it's been over seven years since their la...

LCD Soundsystem American Dream

Published Aug 30, 2017

Over their first three albums, LCD Soundsystem established such a unique, recognizable sound that just 45 seconds into American Dream opener...

​LCD Soundsystem Finding My Religion

Published Aug 22, 2017

James Murphy is happy.   Seated on a large, comfortable couch in a Brooklyn hotel room, the LCD Soundsystem frontman is open, talkative an...

Richard Reed Parry Discusses the "Obnoxious and Noisy" Rollout of Arcade Fire's 'Everything Now'

Published Aug 02, 2017

After a months-long promotional rollout that found Arcade Fire facetiously attempting to send up corporatization, capitalism and social elit...

Arcade Fire Everything Now

Published Jul 25, 2017

Arcade Fire have variously been hailed for their instrumentation, arrangements and lyrics over their decade-and-a-half existence, but at the...

Sheer Mag Are Finally Ready for the Big Time — Sort Of

Published Jul 18, 2017

That punk music was, at least in part, a response to the self-aggrandizing and macho hedonism of '70s arena rock explains the satisfying ten...

Ricky Gervais Massey Hall, Toronto ON, July 14

Published Jul 15, 2017

Ricky Gervais ended the first show of a three-night stint at Toronto's Massey Hall, in the middle of his "Humanity Tour," with an endearing...

Sheer Mag Need to Feel Your Love

Published Jul 13, 2017

Over a trio of four-song EPs released annually since 2014, Philadelphia's Sheer Mag established a unique sound that fused '70s stadium rock...

Sylvan Esso Sound & Vision

Published Apr 28, 2017

Up until the making of their second album, What Now, things had gone pretty smoothly for Sylvan Esso.   In 2012, Amelia Meath, then lead s...

Under Pressure: Four Challenges Sylvan Esso Faced on Sophomore Album 'What Now'

Published Apr 26, 2017

This week, Sylvan Esso will release their long-awaited second album, What Now, courtesy of Loma Vista Recordings. We spoke with Amelia Meath...

​Lydia Ainsworth Closer to the Heart

Published Apr 13, 2017

When Lydia Ainsworth released her debut, Right From Real, in 2014, the carefully arranged strings and choral vocals — not to mention the fac...

​Prozzäk's Simon and Milo The Exclaim! Questionnaire

Published Apr 13, 2017

Rewind to 1999: A pre-9/11 world is enjoying economic prosperity, small (but dumb) cell phones and every imaginable colour of pants. But the...

Father John Misty Pure Comedy

Published Apr 03, 2017

"Leaving L.A." isn't the best song on Father John Misty's monumental third LP, Pure Comedy, but it's a fitting microcosm for it: The epic, 1...

Lydia Ainsworth Darling of the Afterglow

Published Mar 29, 2017

Darling of the Afterglow, Lydia Ainsworth's powerful and self-assured followup to her 2014 full-length Right From Real, finds the Toronto mu...