Think what you may, but at the very least, you can always count on black metal for its directness. You can also count on it to be exactly what it is and nothing more or less. With album titles like Bondage Goat Zombie and Goatreich-Fleshcult, the Satan worshippers of Austrian…
If a guy looks like the missing link between Bat Boy and a young Jason Vorhees (in that scene at the end of Friday the 13th where the, um, rather intent-looking lad shoots out of the water) and plays it up, then you know he’s probably got no shame about…
While 18-year-old guitarist and principal Eyes Set to Kill songwriter Alexia Rodriguez’s lyrical phrasing continues to advance, her preoccupation with depressive themes suggests a deeper wisdom already at work. She may not have known it at the time, but ever since she first scrawled her band’s name in her notebook,…
Think what you may, but at the very least, you can always count on black metal for its directness. You can count on it to be exactly what it is and nothing more or less. With album titles like Bondage Goat Zombie and Goatreich-Fleshcult, the Satan-worshippers of Austrian outfit Belphegor…
Ask your music-loving friend, record-store clerk, or average Joe on the street which band or artist they think has a finger on the pulse of American rock ‘n’ roll more than anyone else, and you’re not likely to hear the name Los Lobos often. Surely, the likes of Dylan, Springsteen,…
Ah, the new wave of British heavy metal. Affectionately known to metalheads the world over as the NWOBHM, the genre’s sound was characterized by galloping rhythms, operatic vocals, and guitars that straddled the line between wailing, classical-tinged solos and not-quite- thrash crunch. Epitomized, of course, by its most world-famous icon,…
It’s too bad the days are gone when metal bands tried to make their album covers look all tough and sinister and ended up with borderline laughable results instead. After all, what metalhead of a certain age bracket doesn’t get all warm and fuzzy thinking about the cartoon-evil artwork for…
Environmental destruction, greed, suicide, and watching your elderly mother die may sound like strange topics to plumb for optimism, but that’s exactly what Oakland’s Rogue Wave manages to do on its latest album, Asleep at Heaven’s Gate. An exquisitely crafted slice of pop that harks back to the days when…
“Say it to my face, look me in the eyes and say what you have to say,” Toryn Green sings on Fuel’s latest album, Angels and Devils. This has to rank right up there with Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney’s staged spat on “The Girl Is Mine” for all-time least-convincing…
It’s not for nothing that this legendary Japanese four-piece, which is largely ignored in its home country, gets greeted with hysterical, slack-jawed enthusiasm by its American and European fans when it tours every two or three years. Melt-Banana gets tagged as noise, punk, hardcore, indie rock, metal, no wave, art…
“I’m a big fan of beautiful accidents,” says Skeleton Key leader Erik Sanko. And he might as well be. Though he is referring to spontaneous creative accidents, Sanko also admits to being mystified that Skeleton Key — which formed in 1996 amidst a thriving downtown New York arts scene —…
In the United States, we take classic rock for granted. It’s become part of the very fabric of our being. And unless you get into deep album cuts (you know, the songs that aren’t played on the radio day after day), it’s hard to let go and just enjoy the…
As he tries to launch a social movement that encourages people to address global warming and throw parties at the same time, Perry Farrell, usually chipper and optimistic in interviews, doesn’t mince words about the gravity of the crisis the human race now finds itself in. New Times caught up…
Queens of the Stone Age cofounder/former bassist and Mondo Generator leader Nick Oliveri likes to play concerts in the nude. But, as Oliveri can readily attest, his, shall we say, “naturalist” approach is not without its hazards. He very nearly landed his naked ass in a Brazilian prison after Queens…
This year’s “D-Low Memorial Show,” with Sacred Reich, Car Bomb, Soulfly, and The Cavalera Conspiracy, certainly boasts one of the most exciting lineups in the history of the event. With brothers (and former Sepultura cornerstones) Max and Igor Cavalera in the lineup, The Cavalera Conspiracy’s live debut gives the show…
Most of the time, the songs that come to represent an artist in the public’s memory don’t do justice to the full scope of the artist’s musical accomplishments across an entire career. How many times do we find ourselves telling other people things like, “Yes, such-and-such band is really cool,…
One-man acts are a lot like power chords: Just when you think they’re getting a little old, you realize that you’ve still got a long way to go before you get sick of them. Tucson’s Bob Log III is certainly not above resorting to gimmick. After all, the man dons…
And the geeks shall inherit the Earth, indeed. If anyone said that Rush would last 30-plus years in 1975, when robo-tronic drummer Neil Peart joined the Canadian trio (thus transforming it from a derivative bar band into one of the world’s most revered prog icons), they were probably high. But,…
While it’s become standard practice for bands to slog through the same old set list night after night, Portugal. The Man has come up with a novel approach to providing audiences with a unique experience each and every time it takes the stage. Nowadays, coming up with a new song…
With musicians, like athletes, it’s always disheartening to watch them hang around long enough to see their abilities break down. Bad Brains fans, long beset by the band’s notorious instability, have every reason to expect that a present-day reunion album can do nothing but tarnish the band’s hallowed legacy. After…
In a time when the opportunity for unsigned musicians to jump-start careers via MySpace seems already to have come and gone, the steadily building success of Tempe’s Eyes Set To Kill is both encouraging and confounding. Since posting a profile on the ubiquitous Web site in March 2005, the band’s…
Musicians shouldn’t be allowed to use the word “raw” to describe their own work. But the terrible twosome known as the Black Diamond Heavies is hereby awarded carte blanche. From the distorted “whoo!” that opens the song “Guess You Gonna,” it’s clear that the Heavies like to keep things as…
