Album Review: Graveyard of Good Times by Brandon Can't Dance

Philadelphia native Brandon Ayres, AKA Brandon Can’t Dance, rattles through styles and influences so readily that on first listen this ramshackle, self-produced collection feels like an arch experiment in mimicry. So Deep, So Tortured, So Freak’s Marilyn Manson-isms are gloriously OTT, while A Greyhound Named Chelsea expertly apes Elliott Smith-esque singer-songwriter woes, rhyming the title with “chalice of ecstasy” in a tongue-in-cheek list of basic needs. Obligatory Star Surfing Song, meanwhile, is a Smashing Pumpkins song in all but name.

Full Review >>

Brandon Can’t Dance, real name Brandon Ayres, is the latest in a line of self-produced, lo-fi singers coming out of Philadelphia. Alex G has dubbed him “the only applicable example of someone that I really admired,” and, like his contemporary, he has a vast collection of Bandcamp releases to bathe in. Previous self-released records flit between lo-fi indie rock and something more electronic and dance-driven, and ‘Graveyard Of Good Times’, his first official full-length, has the same fidgety nature.

Full Review >>

Graveyard of Good Times is the Lucky Number label debut of Brandon Can't Dance, the performance alias of Philadelphia's Brandon Ayres. A lo-fi musician championed by music scene-mate Alex G with a decade's worth of digital self-releases already to his credit, he wrote and recorded the album entirely on his own. The 16 tracks clock in at under four minutes apiece and dart through noise pop, dance pop, guitar rock, animated synth pop, and gloomier post-punk, often lingering in spaces in between.

Full Review >>

Dust Vol. 3, No. 1Robert MillisWe begin our third year of Dust with, as usual, more good music than we can hope to write about, making the difficult transition from albums we were unable to get to in 2016 to albums that we really ought to say something about in early 2017. There’s a little of everything here – artists as well known as Justin Broadrick and as little celebrated as Philadelphia lo-fi outsider Brandon Ayers, albums that are coming out for the first time next week and albums that have moldered undeservedly in obscurity for decades, music of many genres from free jazz to Iranian-flavored electronics to vintage Ohio fuzz.

Full Review >>