Third albums are notorious for their scope, as bands usually feel secure enough to stretch in new directions, but in Rogue Wave’s case, the band didn’t need added inspiration for its third and latest, Asleep at Heaven’s Gate. It’s an album that frontman Zach Rogue had discussed obsessively with his…
Like a sepia-toned photo of days gone by, Watson embodies a sound Nashville disowned years ago for rhinestones and snakeskin. His deep baritone is dark as pumpernickel, smooth as steel, and haunted as that house in Amityville. His music harks back to the dusty honky-tonks and electrified swing of Bakersfield…
This Nashville duo plays fuzzed-out garage blues that sounds like Tom Waits sitting in with the Black Keys. It’s grimy, primal stuff led by frontman John Wesley Myers’ growl. They formed as a trio in 2004, but when guitarist Mark Holder left in 2006 after their debut EP, You Damn…
Both Pelican and Thrice are stretching the boundaries of their sounds and others’ expectations. Pelican’s City of Echoes soft-pedals their usual throb, taking their complex art-metal instrumentals in a melodic direction. The tracks are still dense but don’t unwind as far, getting through each thematic movement with heretofore unseen concision…
If, by magic, American Idol actually conceived a competition between this generation’s greatest professional female vocalists (not the semi-pro pop tarts the show usually offers), it’s hard to imagine who’d top Chan Marshall. The Cat Power singer proved an inspired interpreter on 2000’s The Covers Record, and again on her…
Both these bands are stretching the boundaries of their sound and others’ expectations. Pelican’s third album, City of Echoes, soft pedals their usual throb, taking their complex art-metal instrumentals in a more melodic direction. The tracks are still dense but don’t unwind as far, getting through each thematic movement with…
Florida quintet Yellowcard broke big on 2003’s Ocean Avenue. Songs like “Way Away” and “Only One” kept the band on the radio, in video games, and on awards-show stages for more than a year. You couldn’t escape Yellowcard. The group recorded a follow-up, Lights and Sounds. Then, singer Ryan Key’s…
In the past dozen years, Against Me! singer Tom Gabel’s gone from being an Americanized Billy Bragg strumming angrily against the man to a rock juggernaut with enough fist-in-the-air intensity to rival the anthemic agit-prop of the Clash. Last summer, the Gainesville, Florida quartet made the leap to the majors…
G. Love’s voice rides a rollercoaster of melodies — up, down, and around hairpin turns with a crafty grace that owes as much to old-school hip-hop as it does to classic R&B. While Love (born Garrett Dutton) gets top billing, his music’s most distinctive element is his backing band’s shuffling,…
While this Oakland quartet owes a substantial debt to Cali peers Green Day and blink-182, they’ve always demonstrated promiscuous tastes. Their second album, 2006’s Decomposer, employs nine different producers in forging its eclectic sound. Influences vary widely, from electro-industrial to baroque pop to glam metal and ’80s New Wave, all…
Fans of this Philadelphia six-piece will undoubtedly hail Angels of Destruction! as its best album; it’s certainly Marah’s most accessible and expansive record to date. There’s always been an honest theatricality and a colorful, imaginative flair running through Marah’s musical stories, but Angels takes them to a new level entirely…
Even as Haight was serving up a summer of love in 1967, something darker was brewing in the Bay. Not Altamont, which was still a couple of years away, but Blue Cheer — a thunderous blues act that delved into the shadowy corners of psychedelia rather than indulging the flowery,…
Southern-fried piano swamp funk doesn’t get better than Leon Russell. His greasy R&B cadges a hopping, Delta blues stomp, fueled by his gravelly croak and his percussive pounding at the piano. Russell left Tulsa for L.A. at 16. There, he learned guitar from rockabilly legend James Burton and soon became…
Gallows wield their instruments with such malevolence that it wouldn’t be surprising to discover they also use them to brain rodents in their flat. The U.K. quintet is heavily indebted to the brutal pulse of ’80s American hardcore acts like Black Flag and post-punk’s jagged guitar salvos, influences they share…
“There’s plenty of races on God’s green planet, that doesn’t mean you have to breed with them, goddammit,” rap unrepentant wiseacres Grand Buffet on “Americus (Religious Right Rock),” whose chorus mockingly lauds the child labor that produced its T-shirts. Mounted on cheesy, rudimentary, ’80s-style synth samples and sputtering drum beats,…
How does music engage and touch us so deeply? Why is its presence so intrinsic to what we do? It’s everywhere, from stereos and headphones to movie soundtracks and commercials. Even our voices possess a unique musicality. It’s hardly essential to life, yet music’s been a part of every human…
A cross between the melodic punk of Lawrence Arms and the churning hardcore of Rise Against, AWS combine a high quotient of both heft and hooks. Original drummer Nicholas Pasquale Angelini is the beast’s backbone, driving tempo like Jeff Gordon, and keying a thick bottom end worthy of J.Lo. Atop…
Where do you go when the cute wears off? Lee’s teenage band, Noise Addict, overflowed with precocious charm epitomized by his humorous ode to Evan Dando, “I Wish I Were Him.” It earned the Beastie Boys’ patronage, and the Aussie teen recorded two solo albums for Grand Royal, the latter…
This Minneapolis duo has been a team since their teens, when DJ Abilities left home, and Eyedea’s mom put him up in their basement, where their partnership flourished. Eyedea began competing in battle rap competitions, taking top honors in the ’99 Scribble Jam before he was 18, and winning the…
Regardless of where you plop Jon Spencer — Pussy Galore, the Blues Explosion, Boss Hog, or Heavy Trash, his current partnership with Matt Verta-Ray — there is always an inimitable swagger to the music. It’s a combination of reverence for rootsy antecedents and a willingness to wander off-road into knotty…
He played with some of the best when he was just 17: Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Otis Rush, B.B. King and T-Bone Walker. Guitar Shorty (born David Kearney) credits the flamboyant Guitar Slim with inspiring him to incorporate somersaults and flips into his lively stage show. Settling in Seattle, Shorty…
Frontman Matt Pond doesn’t care for the term “chamber pop,” and it’s a loose fit. His band’s sound is more Delgados than Belle & Sebastian, which is to say that though the quintet frequently uses strings for texture and its melancholy tone, there’s a sturdy indie rock undertone recalling Sebadoh,…
