Within the next month, expect American music ‘zines and your local hipsters to pile head-exploding praise on England’s Amusement Parks on Fire, which just released its self-titled debut stateside. It’s already happened in the U.K. — “Genius-in-a-bottle waiting to be unleashed,” ejaculated Drowned in Sound; “Sounds like the sun rising…
Buzz bands from here, there and everywhere are nicking U.K. sounds, but too many of them are targeting the same period: the early ’80s post-punk days, when it was okay to wear any color as long as it was black, and young men were discovering how much fun they could…
Attention, (guys in) Tight Pants Brigade! Behold Bullet Train to Vegas — your new leader. The Los Angeles-based band’s We Put Scissors Where Our Mouths Are is a creative and spastic art damage record with intense guitar work dominating 11 tracks. The variation of sharp and clean styles (from hardcore…
Everybody loves to see a good bitch-slapping, and the expanded DVD version of this Sundance Award-winning documentary on two friendly bands turned rivals gives you bitch-slapping in any number of directions. What was originally slated as a Brian Jonestown Massacre documentary grew to encompass the Dandy Warhols when BJM went…
Hey, tweakers — hurry up and finish reassembling your El Camino, stop grinding your teeth for a minute, put down the glass dick, and listen up. I’ve got good news: Your favorite non-inhalable muscle motivator is coming to town. On Friday, June 10, Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland, a.k.a. breakbeat…
Once upon a time, sworn fealty to The Cure meant absolute disdain for AC/DC — and vice versa. Morrissey was Bluto to Axl Rose’s Popeye. Back then, It Dies Today wouldn’t have had an audience. But today, thanks to labels like Level-Plane and Trustkill, kids in black-framed glasses rub shoulders…
Ever wish New Wave had survived in the mainstream? As long as you were in it for the synth and not the Day-Glo, The Epoxies may give you what you need. The female-fronted band offers an updated version of that early ’80s sound, infusing poppy synthesizer beats, catchy punk flavor,…
Craig Finn (ex-Minnesotan, ex-Lifter Puller) has the voice of a semi-drunk punk, or maybe a manic street preacher — an exuberant, phlegmy grumble-stumble in line with such brilliant non-singers as Paul Westerberg, Elvis Costello, Shane MacGowan, and Bob Pollard, spitting sharp, wry, highly charged stories of the sacred and the…
Mick Collins hails from Detroit, but lives in a parallel universe — one in which a vinyl-collecting goofball can actually make records that are as fun, ripping and powerful as those of his jukebox heroes. This stuffed collection of singles is the document that proves it. Disc one is all…
As I Lay Dying was the first hardcore band signed to Metal Blade Records. And with Shadows Are Security, its sophomore effort, the quintet has amped up the metal, utilizing a more classic thrash sound. As I Lay Dying also maintains its metalcore foundation, but unlike others in the genre,…
It’s remarkable that after a half-decade of audacity, eccentricity and pulverizing hype, the White Stripes still manage to sneak up and genuinely surprise us. Get Behind Me Satan begins with the blasé Dude We’re Rockin’ Out Dude single “Blue Orchid,” but from there it gets infinitely better, not to mention…
Since 1995’s brass-ring-snatching (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, Oasis’ Gallagher brothers have matched the British media’s hype, rung for rung, with musical grandiosity. Neither the band nor the press have seemed willing to admit that Oasis was not haute cuisine, but good grub — pop played with diamond-hard attitude and…
In the past, U2 and Radiohead’s declarative anthems had been the most obvious benchmarks for Coldplay’s grand make-out music, but with X&Y, the band aims for an interstellar majesty that plays like a warmer, less intellectual Pink Floyd. Chris Martin and his mates again display an ingratiating accessibility, building their…
Shortly after releasing Bebel Gilberto’s phenomenally successful Tanto Tempo, Six Degrees commissioned numerous producers to try their hands at remixing this Brazilian royalty. Considering how Gilberto’s latest self-titled effort evolved her bossa-tinged sound, there’s little surprise that this second edition of dance-based mutations followed suit. Gilberto’s strength is in her…
The collections of sons on the Buena Vista Social Club emitted such stark beauty that Americans went nuts, buying millions of copies of traditional Cuban folk music. But the initial quake was nothing compared to the avalanche of material pouring through the filter thereafter. The highlight to Ry Cooder’s epic…
Way back in 1976, Graham Parker’s commanding vocal presence and acerbic songwriting — given extra fuel by The Rumour, one of the greatest backing bands in rock history — made him a contender. While he was lumped in with the rest of the so-called angry young men of the New…
If the Postal Service has taught us anything, it’s that Seattle-based side projects provide fashionable new beginnings, which is a damn good thing since things always seem to come to a tragic end in the world of prolific Pedro the Lion front man David Bazan. The touring version of his…
Frances the Mute, the latest opus by former At the Drive-In cohorts Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala, arrived at the perfect time; its fresh-and-wild style filled the vacuum left by a dearth of new musical movements. Too bad self-appointed trend monitors are currently working overtime to pigeonhole the group as…
Now that the pale-skinned, fragile-voiced young singer-songwriter from Omaha, Nebraska, has been put on a pedestal with Bob Dylan after 10 years of quietly releasing records as an indie Boy Wonder, it feels like we know everything there is to know about Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. Media hype is a…
New England progressive house DJ Steve Porter cleverly dubs his sound “Porterhouse,” referencing not only his signature style but the gargantuan grooves he lays down live and on his debut album, Homegrown, on FDS Recordings. A protg of Sasha and Sander Kleinenberg, Porter has established himself as a dance-music visionary,…
Simplicity is a profound doorway. Two trips to Cameroon during college inspired Denver native Corey Harris so much that he set his course for a life of blues. The influence of his travels seeped into every second of Mississippi to Mali, a gorgeous minimalist recording reconnecting this sonic tradition created…
If language were a virus, then L.A. rapper Aceyalone would be one of the sickest men ever to touch a mic. Whether pioneering the art of modern freestyle in the late ’80s as part of Freestyle Fellowship or releasing classic underground albums such as ’98’s A Book of Human Language…
