Ryan Reed is a freelance music / pop culture journalist / editor. Besides Diffuser.fm, he currently contributes to Rolling Stone, Paste, Billboard, eMusic, The Phoenix, Metro Pulse, Blurt, Relix, American Songwriter, and many other outlets. He's also an adjunct English and Communications professor. When he's not writing or teaching, he's probably recording his own music, record shopping, playing with his Brittany Spaniel (Tegan), eating copious amounts of chicken wings, or drinking girly beverages.
Ryan Reed
Portugal. The Man, ‘Evil Friends’ – Album Review
Over seven schizophrenic studio albums, Alaska's Portugal. The Man have built a career on sonic illogic, jumping from psych-rock to emo to prog-like stations in a bizarre cable package. But with 'Evil Friends,' their eighth overall effort (and second for major label Atlantic Records), they've made t…
Rogue Wave, ‘Nightingale Floors’ – Album Review
Zach Rogue is incredibly gifted at writing one particular style of song: quirky, tuneful, big-hearted indie rock. And over the course of three wonderful albums (2003's 'Out of the Shadow,' 2005's 'Descended Like Vultures,' and their commercial breakthrough, 2007's 'Asleep at Heaven's Gate'), Rogue h…
Queens of the Stone Age – ‘…Like Clockwork’ – Album Review
For the past 15 years, Josh Homme has subtly tweaked and refined his music like a mad scientist. For all its visceral power, Queens of the Stone Age is built on a formula -- a heavy, colossal, mind-blowing formula, defined by detuned stoner-rock crunch and angelic minor-key spaciness, best exemplifi…
Eureka the Butcher, ‘Music for Mothers’ – Album Review
After his mother's death, Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez decided to honor his family matriarch through music. And so he did -- in the strangest possible fashion. 'Music for Mothers,' his debut LP as alter ego Eureka the Butcher, isn't an acoustic sob-fest or a collection of lyrical piano…
Daft Punk, ‘Random Access Memories’ – Album Review
Wrapped up in the overblown, ubiquitous promotional cycle (SNL teasers, behind-the-scenes interviews, etc.) behind Daft Punk's latest album, it's easy to forget these EDM-pioneering robots are human after all. Other than their largely passable 'Tron' soundtrack, the French d…
Vampire Weekend – ‘Modern Vampires of the City’ – Album Review
As you probably already know, the guys in Vampire Weekend graduated from Columbia. They aren't poor. With their dapper, upper-crust fashion sense, it often looks like they just walked off the set of 'The Royal Tenenbaums.' And -- just in case you missed out while reading all the beard-stroking think…
Deerhunter, ‘Monomania’ – Album Review
Would any of us care so much about Deerhunter without the schtick? From day one, Bradford Cox has been an indie-rock provocateur (pushing buttons with his volatile stage presence, giving some of the weirdest interviews in rock history), and his unusual backstory (asexual outcast with Marfan syndrome…
She & Him, ‘Volume 3′ – Album Review
In the long lineage of actors-turned-pop-songwriters, Zooey Deschanel is one of the few with serious credentials as both. But her image, in many ways, precedes her and prevents any valid discussion of her musical skill. The doe-eyed former Mrs. Ben Gibbard is the tabloid it-girl heartthrob of indie …
Fall Out Boy, ‘Save Rock and Roll’ – Album Review
For us Fall Out Boy freaks, the past decade has been a disorienting whirlwind. What once began as a pop-smart, heart-on-sleeve emo outfit has gradually swelled -- album by album -- into an overblown arena-pop caricature. But even if diehard fans have found this transition perplexing, FOB have worked…
James Blake, ‘Overgrown’ – Album Review
Dubstep, in principle, is about dissolving into the ether. It's music with very specific parameters: drowsy BPMs, wobbly sub-bass, the click-clack patter of digital percussion -- repetitive soundscapes for the dance floors in our lonely brains. But as with any genre, those parameters have become tir…