I’ve told the story before of buying The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most at a music store in Florida on my fifteenth birthday. Little did I know that that very same day, Dashboard Confessional released a delightful concept EP that only the most emo of emo bands could pull off.
So Impossible is a four-track story of a first date with the singer’s crush, aided only by his own acoustic guitar and the acoustic noodlings of Sunny Day Real Estate’s Dan Hoerner.
In writing, it sounds like the kind of thing that should be lost to the forgotten custom HTML of LiveJournal pages. But in spite of—or maybe even because of—its simplicity, it remains enduringly charming.
When I reviewed Circus Trees’ debut EP 
I started 2020 with the realization that 
Speaking of 
A few months ago, I realized that despite years of guest features, tours with bands I love, and general cultural osmosis, I had never actually knowingly listened to Manchester Orchestra.
For the last twenty-three years, Sigur Rós frontman Jón Þór Birgisson, better known as simply Jónsi, has traversed the deepest nearly every span of the human experience, from the glacial joy of Agaetis Byrjun to the isolated chill of Valtari to the dense grief of Kveikur to the bounding, pastoral joy of Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. And that’s all without mentioning Sigur Rós’ more abstract works or the work of Jónsi & Alex, his ambient collaboration with his partner.
There are precious few figures in pop music history who can truly be called Icons: singular performers who are without peer. Artists like