LP, “Love Lines.” Some artists have turned the art of the breakup into literal art, but the resulting songs are often about perceived slights. Singer-songwriter LP had been engaged to their partner of six years up until 2021 album Churches and has seemingly bounced around a bit between several…

LP performs at Fox Theater in Oakland on May 20, 2022. Matthew Medina/STAFF. OAKLAND — Earlier in the day on Friday, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, of the Catholic Church, announced that he would refuse communion to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi until she turns back from the “grave evil…

The beauty of pop is how expansive and malleable it can sound. The music and lyrics can be pushed in various directions, emulating instruments and writing styles from endless other genres, but then falling back toward a sound that’s accessible and enjoyable for most. That’s exactly what LP executes…

Yoke Lore photographed at BottleRock Napa Valley at the Napa Valley Expo on May 24, 2019. Photos: Norm deVeyra. One-time Walk the Moon drummer Adrian Galvin, who now performs and writes music as Yoke Lore, once spent a year living as Buddhist in a monastery in India. While there,…

Thirty years ago, when I was in high school, Morrissey was the patron saint of wispy wallflowers and those too perfect for a world such as this. We loved his odd mixture of sentimentality and aloofness, his queerness, his hair and his love of romantic poetry. Most of all,…

LP performs songs from “Heart to Mouth” at the Fox Theater in Oakland on March 10, 2019. Photos: Karen Goldman. OAKLAND — Singer-songwriter LP wowed a packed Fox Theater Sunday with little more than the power and range of her voice. The show, a make-up of an appearance postponed…

LP. Courtesy photo. After concluding their tour for 2016 album Lost On You, singer-songwriter LP was almost immediately pulled into a songwriting session. They’d just spent five full months on the road and had been living out of suitcases for a year-and-a-half, thanks to the worldwide success of the album’s title…

Messing around with COIN at BottleRock Napa Valley on May 25, 2018. Photo: Roman Gokhman. I think this column is morphing into more of a “my favorite Roman stories” list, but what still holds true is that memorable interviews still lead better stories. I tell the RIFF staff, which…

Lets Eat Grandma This is the continuation of my top 50 albums of 2018. If you’re just now joining me, start here. If part one didn’t make this clear enough: My musical interests are completely all over the place. This list is a product of me trying to expose…

LP, “Heart to Mouth.” Whether it’s the self-cannibalization of acts like Greta Van Fleet or the advent of boneless pop-rockers like Imagine Dragons, 2010s rock has largely become over-polished, non-threatening and creatively bankrupt. It’s a state of affairs Angeleno LP (Laura Pergolizzi) combats on their fifth studio album. Having…