You know Elvis Costello: angry young punk with talent to spare turned middle-aged (52 candles this summer) master collaborator. Preceding projects have promulgated an array of songwriting trysts (Bacharach and McCartney and wife Diana Krall, to name but a few) as well as orchestral dalliances with the Brodsky Quartet and…
Impatient ears will hear the pretty indie gloss of Camera Obscura and quickly dismiss it as twee chamber pop, but while the sextet’s sunny music pleases on contact, front woman Tracyanne Campbell has more on her mind than sweet refrains. While the galloping opener, “Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken,”…
A vision of smeared red lipstick, smudgy eyeliner, and a cotton candy tangle of platinum hair, Theo Kogan was an early ’90s icon as the petulant, potty-mouthed front woman of all-girl punk band the Lunachicks, who ruled the New York club scene after the sea change of grunge unleashed a…
While mosh-inclined fans and occasional employment of screamo vocals often pigeonhole Seattle trio The Fall of Troy into the hardcore genre, the skill level of the barely legal members’ playing suggests that there is more to this group than circle pits and screeches. Guitarist Thomas Erak loops his uncontrollably speedy…
If Lyle Lovett is the thinking man’s Texas songwriter, Robert Earl Keen is the drinking thinking man’s Texas songwriter. Since the late ’80s, Keen’s cockeyed, barstool’s-eye view of life’s landscape has lured love from the alt-country set and diehard frat partyers in equal measure. Lumped in early on with the…
Has any American artist — whether it be filmmaker, author or musician — responded to 9/11 more vigorously than Bruce Springsteen? Between The Rising, Devils & Dust, and this year’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, Springsteen’s recent material has laboriously detailed the human fallout from that day’s attacks and…
The legendary DJ Vadim has been gaining accolades in the underground hip-hop community for ages now, working with a who’s who of MCs and holding his own as an instrumental sonic architect. Across the Atlantic pond, where the Russian-born DJ holds down a residency in London called Loose Change, Vadim…
Cutting her teeth with unique Parisian band Nouvelle Vague (whose last album featured bossa nova covers of ’80s songs by the likes of Joy Division), Camille’s second solo outing has already won accolades on her home continent. A predominantly a cappella record, occasionally backed by light yet effective instrumentation, Le…
Since rapper Timothy “Gift of Gab” Parker and Xavier “DJ Chief Xcel” Mosely formed Blackalicious in 1987 while attending high school in Sacramento, California, the duo has persevered from one hip-hop generation to another. The two have seen musical tastes change from the trendy youth culture of the late ’80s…
To metalheads everywhere: There appears to be some confusion about a particular number in reference to me and my eminence. Somewhere between the misinterpretations of numerologists, that movie with the scary kid, and the occasional nod from a handful of spandex-wearing musicians in the late 20th century, all of you…
The 18 tracks compiled on Invaders present a rare glimpse inside Kemado A&R chief Keith Abrahamsson’s troubled cranium. Though these bands share musical touchstones (it’s pointless even to mention Black Sabbath), each takes its influences in a slightly different direction. Leaning toward the sludgy bludgeoning of groups such as Saviours,…
You’d have to search mighty diligently to find another set of hardcore punks who voluntarily put an “FBI Anti-Piracy Warning” on their independently released CD. But Sigma already distinguishes itself as perhaps the only group in any musical genre outside of Up With People to list a “band meaning” on…
It’s rare for an artist coming up in today’s rap game to release an album that’s not quickly labeled pop rap, underground, or gangster, but the second solo project from Phoenix rapper Blaze Rock falls somewhere in between, defying easy categorization. With tracks produced by a variety of mostly local…
As female duo The Ditty Bops cover the Everly Brothers’ “Bye Bye Love” on their new record, it’s difficult to believe them when they sweetly croon “I feel like I could die” over delicately plucked acoustic guitar and mandolin. But that discontinuity may very well be the group’s appeal. Spinning…
Mike Patton should have worn out his welcome by now. After all, the guy’s got more side projects than he’s got sides. Yet the Good General’s music is usually interesting enough to justify its existence, and Peeping Tom’s debut is no exception. Despite the disc’s artsy concept (Patton and his…
Although brokenhearted fans may still be mourning the breakup of beloved emo band The Get-Up Kids, some solace can be found in singer Matt Pryor’s former side project and now full-time band, The New Amsterdams, which recently released a new, acoustic-driven album. Far more mellow and lacking in pop hooks,…
New York City’s Liars may have been one of the first to re-popularize dance-influenced post-punk with their debut They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument On Top, released in 2001, but they’ve since moved on. After confusing fans and critics alike with their sophomore album, They…
Pinback’s most recent album, Summer in Abaddon, is more than a year and a half old, but it speaks volumes about the state of indie rock — and how a bit of subtlety and ingenuity can still raise eyebrows. Whereas its counterparts pile distortion onto heaps of four-chord guitar, Pinback…
Brendon “Alias” Whitney and Rona “Tarsier” Rapadas don’t technically use the needles to get their dark and vibrant combo of rhythm and female vox across; Alias instead exchanged the turntable technique for drum machines and electronic tools, while Tarsier lays her poetic lyricism on top. The duo’s collision and collaboration…
The Loon is right, and not the bird, either. And I see the high-jump kings with roadside stirrups on when I come back to meet the bear, explains singer Josh Grier on “In Houston.” Crumple up lyrics like these with guitar that ranges between riffy fuzz and crystal ambiance; synth…
If you’ve been racing down local dirt roads in your pickup, jamming to Toby Keith or Gretchen Wilson, then you should probably skip this week’s Hank III concert. Plastering a Confederate flag in your back window might buy you a redneck pass (and hopefully a good ass-whuppin’), but it doesn’t…
The Smiths inspire the formation of a new band about once every 3.7 seconds, which means in the time it takes you to read this sentence, two guys with hard-ons for Morrissey have decided to pick up a mic and mope about how bad their middle-class childhoods were. In the…
