http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/6997/frankocean-channelorange-2012

…but that album cover? 38%.

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/feature/6991/article-longview2011-2012

[Great albums] have the power to be more than just plastic or 86 MB on a laptop or even just music, they become part of us: friends that we can crack open a beer with, go to for counsel on sleepless nights, or hate our upstairs neighbor with. Or they might just be really good records to throw on at a house party. Either way, time tempers our passions and sharpen our perspective. With this in mind, I’d look to look back on five records that CMG got behind in 2011 to see why, these many months later, they’re worth remembering.

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/6969/guidedbyvoices-classclownspotsaufo-2012

Class Clown Spots a UFO is a pretty good record, but really doesn’t sound that much like Let’s Go Eat the Factory, which was released all of five months ago. Yes, they both sound like Guided by Voices—no one’s going to mistake Pollard or current co-captain Tobin Sprout for anyone else at this point. But where Factory found the newly-reunited band indulging their latent prog tendencies on epic three- and four-minute (!) tracks, Class Clown has them chugging out twenty-one songs in forty minutes and focusing on a slightly grimier, more aggressive version of the GBV sound.