Everlast is like Kid Rock for the indie set, a onetime rapper who’s embraced roots music and proved to be an evocative performer. His gruff baritone has been his calling card going back to his days in House of Pain, during which his admonition to “Jump Around” spoke to a…
There’s a rollicking charm to Blitzen Trapper’s blend of folk and classic rock that suggests a summer day. Perhaps it’s the bright, sunny ’60s melodies or the way guitars alternate between the crackle of country-fried distortion and jangling acoustics, vacillating between Neil Young and Jerry Garcia like a picnic featuring…
Some bands ride a rollercoaster of popularity, with a steep climb quickly followed by a period when — absent a radio hit — the bottom drops out. Death Cab for Cutie’s enjoyed a more modest incline. It has experienced a steady growth in stature over the past 14 years —…
Though each of Maynard James Keenan’s various projects is informed by hard rock, they’re most notable for how they subvert the formula. A former art school student, Keenan has demonstrated particular interest in music’s visual and performance aspects, as he’s been a trailblazer with everything from Tool’s distinctive videos to…
There’s hardly a subject that escapes Ben Folds’ wit. From style faux pas (“For Those of Y’all Who Wear Fannie Packs”) to apathetic scenesters (“Battle of Who Could Care Less”), Folds produces all manner of self-deprecation, sardonic observation, and irreverence, stretching from “Your Redneck Past” to his cover of Dr…
Though they never achieved the notoriety enjoyed by some ’90s Cali punk peers, Face to Face’s fans are legion among the punk faithful, particularly skaters. Led by frontman Trever Keith (the quartet’s sole remaining original member), Face to Face’s songs race like nitrous funny cars fueled on slashing guitar hooks…
The Airborne Toxic Event’s pulsing, chilly music — with the moody sweep and swirling keyboards of ’80s dark-wave revivalists such as the Killers and Interpol — moves with majestic aplomb. (Frontman Mikel Jollett even cites the Smiths in “Strange Girl,” off last month’s second album, All At Once.) Once an…
San Francisco duo The Dodos’ bright, intricately rhythmic music quilts together influences ranging from Afro-pop and folk-psych to country-blues and po-mi (post-millennial) experimental pop. Since forming in 2005 around singer/songwriter Meric Long and drummer Logan Kroeber, The Dodos have released three increasingly polished and refined albums, with a fourth, No…
Autumn’s Victorian rock operas offer surprisingly poppy burlesque-glam — imagine a coned-tit-era Madonna gone goth. Rasputina and Dresden Dolls are obvious touchstones, sharing similar predilections for moody theatricalism, classical music, and Kurt Weill. A violin prodigy, Autumn attended the Music Conservatory at Indiana University when she was 14. She wouldn’t…
Rocky Votolato’s music has a hushed, strummy ambiance and bittersweet, minor key melodies that recall Elliott Smith — albeit with more backbeat and a hint of country. Votolato grew up in Dallas before moving to Seattle for high school, and he blends the disparate sensibilities honed in those cities with…
There’s something to be said for consistency — at least that’s what you take away from Scott H. Biram’s song “Still Drunk, Still Crazy, Still Blue,” off his 2009 record Something’s Wrong/Lost Forever. The character falls within Biram’s general specialty of wandering wastrels, truck-driving whiskey-drinkers, and lost souls rootless as…
Kepi Ghoulie’s bottomless servings of sugary sweet musical candy make him the ultimate pop-punk confectioner. Though he hails from Sacramento, California — hours north of pop-punk’s ground zero — he shares a kinship with such SoCal progenitors as Descendents, Redd Kross, and The Vandals. He got his start in the…
In a culture so besieged by the conflict between art and commerce, it’s perhaps natural that the use of pop idioms is disparaged by the critical elite, anxious to protect their canon from dilution. Charlie Hunter has dodged such dismissive darts aimed at his eclectic jazz treatments, which have spanned…
On the surface, punk rock and Bruce Springsteen are strange bedfellows, but look deeper and you’ll find a unifying theme. At their best, both punk and the Boss address the desperation and alienation implicit in folding yourself into the means of production that drives our capitalist culture. You oil the…
Ruts are normal. Nowhere is this truer than in art, where it’s easier to be a follower than a leader. So it is that metal and hardcore, which broke out of the morass of their longtime heavily scripted, regimented styles by cross-pollinating, have slid back into predictability after a brief…
A decade after O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the word “Americana” is about as specific as “beer.” Portland combo The Beautiful Train Wrecks take advantage of the loose boundaries, working from lonesome pedal steel and loping trad-country twang to heartland roots rock with a pop sensibility reminiscent of Counting Crows…
Kepi Ghoulie’s bottomless servings of sugary sweet musical candy make him the ultimate pop-punk confectioner. Though he hails from Sacramento, California — hours north of pop-punk’s ground zero — he shares a kinship with such SoCal progenitors as Descendents, Redd Kross, and The Vandals. He got his start in the…
Kepi Ghoulie’s bottomless servings of sugary sweet musical candy make him the ultimate pop-punk confectioner. Though he hails from Sacramento, California — hours north of pop-punk’s ground zero — he shares a kinship with such SoCal progenitors as Descendents, Redd Kross, and The Vandals. He got his start in the…
A decade after O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the word “Americana” is about as specific as “beer.” Portland combo The Beautiful Train Wrecks take advantage of the loose boundaries, working from lonesome pedal steel and loping trad-country twang to heartland roots rock with a pop sensibility reminiscent of Counting Crows…
For Dan Snaith, a.k.a. electronic musician Caribou, winning the Polaris Prize for his fourth album, 2007’s Andorra, was validation of seven years of hard work. The award, given annually to the best Canadian album, was an odd nod considering the solitary nature of his bedroom recording and the cultish appeal…
The Album Leaf isn’t so much post-rock as it is post-soft. Sigur Rós protégé and auteur Jimmy LaValle’s five largely instrumental albums could be called road music, because what they evoke is too many undulating miles of asphalt. Unlike The Odyssey, LaValle’s music isn’t epic. Odysseus went somewhere, while The…
The Album Leaf isn’t so much post-rock as it is post-soft. Sigur Rós protégé and auteur Jimmy LaValle’s five largely instrumental albums could be called road music, because what they evoke is too many undulating miles of asphalt. Unlike The Odyssey, LaValle’s music isn’t epic. Odysseus went somewhere, while The…
