Here’s one explanation for the lack of female-fronted power-pop bands through the years: While girls might appreciate the power, as well as the pop, they’re creeped out by the teenaged male geek emotional state — mainly obsession with and over-idealization of girls — that laces the chiming hooks together. If…

Something is wrong with society when the most impish bands of the ’90s start making resonant social statements. But on Under a Billion Suns, Mudhoney seems more vexed and pissed than Green Day or NOFX. Partly, it’s the sound: Oxidized slabs of guitar psychedelia evoke messy times better than polished…

If the theme of 2006’s party is art damage, then Test Icicles — originally called Balls, in case you’ve missed the sketchy word play — provide the soundtrack. But party rock was once about partying, while this might not be about anything. To wit, the Icicles’ declaration “Yeah yeah, bitches…

Rock ‘n’ roll flicks that aspire to quality are usually a waste of time. The ones sincerely committed to being dumb, however, can be treasure troves of useful bad taste. I Was a Teenage Mummy (released in ’92, but stuck in ’65), for example, is brimming with quotably stupid soliloquies…

With delicate tunes and referential album titles like The Boy With the Arab Strap, Belle & Sebastian main man Stuart Murdoch is a cult artist who’s more or less birthed a scene of pop miniaturists, known as Twee. But whoever thinks it’s impossible to make pop music of the overeducated,…

Some soul singers have sung their joy — Sam Cooke and Stevie Wonder not least — and made their best art. But Anthony Hamilton comes from a bluesier tradition, with a lilting, earthbound voice that knows struggle, and a masterwork in 2003’s heavy Comin’ From Where I’m From. Ain’t Nobody…

Rhino’s lavish reissues bookend T. Rex’s most fully cooked work, polishing maestro Marc Bolan’s legacy for any Yanks who still think of this overseas superstar as a trashy novelty. Not that trash is beside the point: Bolan’s 1972 masterpiece, The Slider, is full of the kind of grubby teenage reverie…

While you’re tackling Martin Scorsese’s Dylan dissertation, take a break for a humbler rockumentary that’s no less fascinating and a lot more fun. All Dolled Up, the distillation of 40 lost hours of primitive video that photographer Bob Gruen originally shot between ’72 and ’74, is a rare window into…

While other kids in the dawn of their 20s wax artistic, Atlanta’s Black Lips are stalwart in their scuzzy retro glory. Let It Bloom, their third album as the favorite little brothers of Sonics freaks everywhere, may sound like it was recorded on tin in 1968 — with wisps of…

Anyone confused by 2003’s worldwide Darkness phenomenon — How does a band this goofy compete with U2 on the charts? — shall remain so. The Darkness has nothing up its spandex sleeve but exuberant hard rock and satire. Nevertheless, One Way Ticket to Hell . . . and Back does…

One of the most original bands ever to gain a bankable following is beginning to sound a little too comfortable in its own self-invented genre. Not that any other band has duplicated the formula: metalcore mosh with auctioneer-gone-mad vocals, followed by incantational harmonies and exotic-stringed acoustic breaks. And few other…

Pop-punk boasts about as much intrigue these days as “blues-rock,” “rap-metal” and every other innocent-sounding compound that has grown into a stinky, world-dominating blob. For five years, Chicago’s Lawrence Arms have stayed interesting by being the Renaissance men of a genre that’s broader than our wary ears might recognize after…

Charlie Sexton, having left home at 12 to storm Austin as a guitar prodigy, does not lack in heartland grit. Maybe that’s why his latest, Cruel and Gentle Things, harks back to an era before rootsy rock was called “alt-country” and required the prurient use of Dobro and banjo to…

You don’t exactly picture Joan Jett writing free-verse poetry in black horn-rimmed glasses. So emo-ish album title aside, it’s no surprise that The Vacancies play just the kind of unpretentious rawk you’d expect Jett to champion with her label Blackheart. A Beat Missing or a Silence Added, the Cleveland quartet’s…

Contrary to the VH1 version of history, Scottish twins Craig and Charlie Reid are not some offbeat one-hit wonders. While their singles haven’t caught on the way their breakout hit, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” did, every one of their six Proclaimers albums contains tracks just as catchy and literate…

To compare the real-world success of onetime labelmates The Queers and Green Day, consider that one of them has just made a successful transition to bloated arena rock, while the other apparently couldn’t leverage the rights to its back catalogue for a best-of album. For last year’s Summer Hits No…

In a 2003 interview, Ryan Adams’ idol, Paul Westerberg, suggested that it might do the younger singer-songwriter some good to get his teeth kicked in. This seemingly mean-spirited comment, despite coming from someone who’d slapped an audience member that same year, was taken personally. But Westerberg was right. Anyone who…

Back in 2000, in the year of ye olde nü-metal, a fledgling Disturbed carried on one of metal’s oldest traditions: self-seriousness, bordering on self-parody. Rather than trying to be street like everybody else, singer Dave Draiman and flanks proffered master’s degrees and philosophical pomp. On the new Ten Thousand Fists,…

Anyone who’s been subjected to Baha’i ska or Krishna punk can tell you that Christianity is not the problem with Christian rock — it’s the manipulation of secular music with religion. Reggae, on the other hand, is religious music in the first place, with a distinctly Judaic root. No surprise,…

Something unprecedented is happening with white reggae stylists in North America. Where previous groups, like Big Mountain, might have seen the music as a cheap, roundabout ticket to blackness, younger acts are beginning to inject their own cultural personalities. Toronto’s Bedouin Soundclash may not carry the spiritual weight of Matisyahu’s…

Modern Machines are hardly the first young band to take early Replacements’ drunk-punk and stumble with it. But while so many others have gotten the fucking-around part down pat, this Milwaukee quartet captures the melody and muscle as well. At eight tracks, Taco Blessing is more densely packed with lilting…