Kyle Mullin

Beijing

Freelance journalist with stories in @NatGeo @guardian @WIRED @globeandmail @ajenglish @CBCMusic @billboard @SPIN @complexcanada @exclaimdotca

Articles

Caroline Rose: year of the slug (Self-Released) - review

3 weeks ago | undertheradarmag.com | Kyle Mullin

Web Exclusive Caroline Rose’s new album, year of the slug, is loaded with one jolting pleasant surprise after the next. The glaring standout in this regard: “goddamn train.” Amidst 11 tracks veering between hazy indie pop to punky singer/songwriter fare, this centerpiece song rushes out the gate with its twangy guitar and fittingly stomping percussion.
Patterson Hood: Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams (ATO) - review

1 month ago | undertheradarmag.com | Kyle Mullin

Web Exclusive Though his work in the Drive-By Truckers is among the most acclaimed in all of alt-country, Patterson Hood’s excellent—albeit occasionally more experimental—solo albums should by no means go overlooked. More listeners are sure to come around now that he has released Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams.
Craig Finn on Collaborating with The War on Drugs on His New Album “Always Been”

1 month ago | undertheradarmag.com | Kyle Mullin

Craig Finn does everything from spoken word to singing and holding high notes on his newly released sixth solo album, Always Been (out now on Tarmac and Thirty Tigers). The fact that he pushes himself as a singer on standout track “A Man Needs a Vocation” may come as a surprise to the fans of his legendary indie rock band The Hold Steady. That’s because he has long been known for working elaborate lyricism and a heartfelt delivery into the limits of his voice.
Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on His New Memoir “Heartbreaker”

1 month ago | undertheradarmag.com | Kyle Mullin

Web Exclusive “Yes, Tom [Petty] was not a perfect person. Neither am I. Neither are you, you know,” guitarist Mike Campbell says, a bit testily, during a recent phone interview about his new memoir Heartbreaker. The autobiography first recounts how early classic rock radio, and the cheap guitar his mother managed to buy him, gave Campbell emotional refuge during his impoverished childhood.
Digital Cover Story: Black Country, New Road on “Forever Howlong”

1 month ago | undertheradarmag.com | Kyle Mullin

Left to right: Luke Mark, Tyler Hyde, Lewis Evans, May Kershaw, Charlie Wayne, Georgia Ellery Web Exclusive Despite the sudden departure of their lead singer Isaac Wood in 2022, four days before the release of their sophomore album, Ants from Up There, the remaining members of Black Country, New Road (BCNR) decided not to change their band’s name while working on their new album, Forever Howlong, which just dropped on Ninja Tune to fanfare and rave reviews. “We already had momentum, something...
Dark Winds Season Three

1 month ago | undertheradarmag.com | Kyle Mullin

Web Exclusive Zahn McClarnon exudes as much leading man gravitas as ever in Season Three of AMC’s 1970s Navajo reservation-set crime drama Dark Winds. In the pulse-pounding cold open of “Ye’iitsoh (Big Monster)”, the season premiere, he fends off a merciless adversary while nursing a wound from a feathered projectile in a sequence that brilliantly subverts and updates well-worn bow and arrow cowboy-and-Indian tropes.
Doves: Constellations for the Lonely (EMI North) - review

2 months ago | undertheradarmag.com | Kyle Mullin

Web Exclusive Fans of northwestern British band Doves—who were nominated twice for the coveted Mercury Prize in the early 2000s—are surely devastated by news of frontman Jimi Goodwin’s mental health issues recently sidelining him from their first performances since 2019. The silver lining: he sounds as strong as ever on Doves’ new LP, Constellations for the Lonely.
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory

Feb 6, 2025 | undertheradarmag.com | Kyle Mullin

Web Exclusive Sharon Van Etten’s first album written with her backing band, The Attachment Theory, is a triumph on many fronts. For one, many of this eponymous LP’s early tracks are immersively atmospheric, which is all the more impressive because of their masterful minimalism. Openers “Live Forever” and “Afterlife” both begin with straightforward key notes and similarly direct lyricism from Van Etten.
Noël Wells on “Mr. Roosevelt”

Jan 19, 2025 | undertheradarmag.com | Kyle Mullin

Noël Wells As if it isn’t impressive enough to be a Saturday Night Livealum, or steal scenes from star comic Aziz Ansari as the main love interest in season one of his series Master of None, Noël Wells is now marking grander milestones. With the new film Mr. Roosevelt, the 30-year-old artsy San Antonian has instantly become a triple threat: Leading lady. Screenwriter. Director. Not that she’s letting any of it go to her head.
The best songs of 2024 … that you haven’t heard

Dec 27, 2024 | theguardian.com | Laura Snapes |Ben Beaumont-Thomas |Alaina Demopoulos |Shaad D'Souza |Rob LeDonne |Kyle Mullin | +3 more

Tashi Dorji – Begin From Here“Strumming in opposition to the towers” is how the Bhutan-born, US-based guitarist Tashi Dorji describes his abstract, improvised music. His song and album titles are equally poetic evocations of resistance and decay – his new album is called We Will Be Wherever the Fires Are Lit and contains songs such as Meet Me Under the Ruins and Flowers for the Unsung – and the brusque, clanging strums of his acoustic guitar resound with turmoil and determination.