Evan Rytlewski

Milwaukee

Web Editor at WYMS-FM (Milwaukee, WI)

Writer. Contributor @Pitchfork. Alum @RadioMilwaukee, @WMSE, @ShepherdExpress. Bylines @NPR @TheAVClub @WashingtonPost @Spin @Stereogum @PasteMagazine. (he/him)

Articles

Great Grandpa: Patience, Moonbeam

2 months ago | pitchfork.com | Evan Rytlewski

In a more robust market for emotional, guitar-forward rock, Great Grandpa’s 2019 album Four of Arrows might have made the group overnight favorites. Instead, the album found a more gradual, muted reception, earning Great Grandpa a reputation as one of the most underrated bands in emo-adjacent indie rock, as well as the quiet admiration of their peers.
Evan’s Substack

2 months ago | floweragain.substack.com | Evan Rytlewski

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The Tubs: Cotton Crown

2 months ago | pitchfork.com | Evan Rytlewski

Shortly before founding his jangle quartet the Tubs, Owen Williams poured himself into a very different passion project: a prickly novel inspired by the suicide of his mother, folk singer and writer Charlotte Greig. “It was 2016 and the Trauma Industrial Complex was revving into gear,” Williams explained in a Substack post; “I wanted to be exploited too.” Alas, he recounts, the market was not as ripe for his style of unsentimental grief as he’d anticipated.
The Tubs: Cotton Crown

2 months ago | flipboard.com | Evan Rytlewski

Justin Bieber Debuts New Look Days After Turning 31It’s not uncommon to switch things up after a birthday — some go on a trip, others splurge on something new. Justin Bieber? He grabbed a razor. On …
Jack White: No Name

Aug 6, 2024 | pitchfork.com | Evan Rytlewski

Somewhere between his increasingly fussy solo albums, and certainly by the time he started policing audiences’ cell phones, it became clear that Jack White was not the uninhibited nonconformist he played so convincingly with the White Stripes.
Jack White: No Name

Aug 6, 2024 | flipboard.com | Evan Rytlewski

Somewhere between his increasingly fussy solo albums, and certainly by the time he started policing audiences’ cell phones, it became clear that Jack White was not the uninhibited nonconformist he played so convincingly with the White Stripes. Since that duo disbanded in 2011, White has …
Milwaukee rap stars 414BigFrank and J.P. are on a charm offensive. We are all powerless to resist.

Jun 18, 2024 | milwaukeerecord.com | Evan Rytlewski |Matt Wild

How do you make a sound as unpolished as Milwaukee lowend appeal to the masses? That’s a puzzle it didn’t take the city’s rap scene long to solve. In its earliest incarnations just a few years ago, lowend was cheap and abrasive—all metronomic clap, distorted bass, and grating repetition—but the style has evolved quickly, and a new wave of Milwaukee rappers has figured how how to tame it for maximum saturation without compromising its peculiar charms.
Kings of Leon Make Their No-Stakes Fuck-Around Album

May 13, 2024 | spin.com | Evan Rytlewski

Kings of Leon – Can We Please Have FunLoveTap/CapitolThere’s nothing subtle about Kings of Leon’s pivot on their ninth LP, but subtlety has never done this band any good anyway. After two drearily self-serious albums that mistook solemnity for profundity, 2016’s WALLS and 2021’s When You See Yourself, the Followill quartet leave behind producer Markus Dravs and the oppressive U2 of it all on Can We Please Have Fun, an explicit attempt to reintroduce some levity into their sound.
Romanticism

May 12, 2024 | newsbreak.com | Evan Rytlewski

Welcome to NewsBreak, an open platform where diverse perspectives converge. Most of our content comes from established publications and journalists, as well as from our extensive network of tens of thousands of creators who contribute to our platform. We empower individuals to share insightful viewpoints through short posts and comments.
Hana Vu: Romanticism

May 12, 2024 | pitchfork.com | Evan Rytlewski

Time comes for us all, but Hana Vu is taking it harder than most. “There’s no song in my heart like I thought there was when I was young,” she wallows on the first song of her second album, Romanticism. It’s the kind of lament that a more restrained songwriter might make with melancholic resignation, but Vu doesn’t do quiet emotions: She bellows the line as if she’s been mortally wounded or awoken to find the sun stricken from the sky.