Semper Fidelis

Distortland, the ninth studio LP from Portland, Oregon quartet the Dandy Warhols, continues the band's post-Odditorium maturation, taming a bit of their edge. As singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor acknowledges on "The Grow Up Song," "I've got to admit, I'm too old for this shit." With less sleaze and more reflection, the Dandies retain their wit with a wink, but aren't as sneering as on prior releases. While their most popular hits tend to veer toward the infectious pop side of the spectrum, most of their albums contain a hefty amount of trippy dreamscapes. Distortland isn't as in-your-face as the more muscular tracks on This Machine, nor is it as shiny as Welcome to the Monkey House. Without any immediate hits like "We Used to Be Friends" or "Bohemian Like You," the band seems to have left behind that commercial urge on Distortland, instead focusing on vibes and sensations.

On the eve of his centenary in 2018, Sony Classical releases the most important collection, Leonard Bernstein’s classic American Columbia recordings, remastered from their original 2- and multi-track analogue tapes. This has allowed for the creation of a natural balance (for example, between the orchestra and solo instruments) that brings the quality of these half-century-old recordings, excellent for their time, up to the standards of today’s audiophiles. In addition, there has been a meticulous restoration of some earlier masterings in which LP surface noise was too rigorously eliminated at the expense of the original brilliance.