Valerie Polichar

Valerie E. Polichar

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Valerie writes & publishes music reviews, articles, and crime, horror, literary and SF short fiction. She sings, writes songs and records music under the name Huge Shark from her home in San Diego, California.

Articles by Valerie E. Polichar

Cover of Gentle Brontosaurus album Three Hares, showing an drawing of a rabbit drinking at a pond, his reflection, and a skeleton of a rabbit to the side

Gentle Brontosaurus – Three Hares

Three Hares is lovely and listenable, with many pleasing details. It’s almost too pretty to feel heartfelt, but fans of sweet folk-pop will find much to enjoy.

A chair stands by itself at the top of a flight of stairs.

Hilliat Fields – Welcome to the Alone

You can forget that it’s playing. You won’t forget its impact on your troubled soul.

Roman numeral V (Five) on a fiery red background

Whale Fall – Five

Enormous, beautiful… and some of the new album is straight-up rock’n’roll.

His Name Is Alive – How Ghosts Affect Relationships (boxset)

His Name Is Alive’s trademark blend of grunge and gauze, darkness and shimmering light, is just as extraordinary the second time around.

Kate Yeager – Before the Lights Go Out

If not quite the album she is capable of, Before the Lights Go Out demonstrates that Yeager is a solid pop singer/songwriter, with a yearning-tinged voice and a modern sensibility.

Timothy Forster – Robert Calvert: Through His Work (Book Review)

With Robert Calvert Through His Work, Timothy Forster has produced the first exhaustive analysis of Robert Calvert’s extraordinary work for Hawkwind, seating it authoritatively within its sociopolitical and cultural milieu.

A pattern of raindrops on a window with the text "Too Many Souls - Avi C. Engel"

Avi C. Engel — Too Many Souls

Avi C. Engel’s Too Many Souls is mesmerising and otherworldly, existing somewhere in the dream state between memory and prophecy: a visit there will leave the listener quietly transformed.

Cover of handturner - Works and Shoots shows image of folding chairs collapsed inside a boxing ring

handturner — Works and Shoots

The album lives — compellingly, for those of us who embrace interstitial auditory spaces —between ambient texture and noise celebration.

Abstract cover of Often the Thinker - Sincere Insanity

Often the Thinker — Sincere Insanity

At its best, Sincere Insanity sews disparate sounds into a circle, bringing the listener back to themselves, as if to say — either about Often the Thinker or about any of us — “I contain multitudes”.

Taco Johnathan – I Want You to Have This

With I Want You to Have This, Taco Johnathan takes the punk genre by the throat and slyly subverts it.

LizZard – Eroded

Masterful, compelling progressive rock.

Short-Haired Domestic – S/T

Compelling, exuberant funk… a sunny, silly ride.

Protomartyr – Ultimate Success Today

Tight licks, haunting halls of sound, and percussion that propels.

Beauty in Chaos – The Storm Before the Calm

Cool all over: the latest album from Beauty in Chaos is their strongest and most consistent to date.

TDK – USPEH

Beautifully shadowy and complex, the superb Uspeh leaves the listener with a fierce sense of longing for something always just out of reach.

SUBSHINE – EASY WINDOW

Bright-colored, catchy ‘80s-style pop with some seriously standout tracks

Eluvium – Virga I

A welcome ambient companion on long winter nights.

Armstrong – Under Blue Skies (Expanded)

A sunny summer jangle-pop playlist drenched in ‘60s and ‘70s nostalgia.

Eluvium - Pianoworks

Eluvium – Pianoworks

Simple but elegant neoclassical piano offers lovely company – but it could have been much more.

The Blue Tapes House Band – Vol. 3: Chase Me Before the Plague

Mind-altering, disturbing auditory-noise brilliance from the creators of Blue Tapes.

Whale Fall at bluewhale, Little Tokyo, Los Angeles

In a rare live show, Whale Fall displays their mastery of instrumental post-rock.

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