From the bright crackle and spark-spewing pop of Throwing Muses to the smoldering intensity of her semi-acoustic solo career, the songwriting fire inside Kristin Hersh has burned for more than 20 years. Golden Ocean — the debut longplayer from her new trio, 50 Foot Wave (following last year’s self-titled EP)…
With chiseled muscles drizzled in oil and an unspecified power that left him impervious to bullets, 50 Cent exploded onto the pop landscape like a Nietzsche-meets-Al-Capone Superman with a cadre of club-banging beats, itchy hooks and one-dimensional verses. For better and worse, The Massacre breaks little new ground. There are…
Politics and music have always been uneasy bedfellows, but 27-year-old Maya Arulpragasam knows about unease. The Sri Lankan native’s family fled that country’s civil war for Britain more than 20 years ago, and her father — linked to the divisive revolutionary outfit the Tamil Tigers — remains M.I.A., a moniker…
Are you kids out there ready to get tiny? Famed trance DJ Micro is stopping through the ‘Nix on Saturday, April 2, to lay down some of his hypnotic anthems for the one-year anniversary of Flux at Sports City Grill/Sky Lounge (132 East Washington Street). The New York native has…
This coupling is a little like TNT wrapped in plastic explosive — a kind of hard-rock overkill. The Burning Brides are the more accessible of the two bands, mixing a dirty garage-rock roar with flashes of metal style, sounding at their best like The Stooges in a grudge match with…
A brand-new band doesn’t usually wait a couple of years to follow up a debut, unless we’re talking about Audioslave or some other aggregation that’s got a lot of lazy supergroup money lying around. But Chicago’s Plain White T’s managed to let two and a half years go by between…
1. 50 Cent, The Massacre (Aftermath) 2. Baby Bash, Super Saucey (Universal) 3. Nb Ridaz, Nbridaz.com(Upstairs) 4. Akon, Trouble (Universal) 5. Gwen Stefani, Love, Angel, Music, Baby (Interscope) 6. The Game, The Documentary (Aftermath) 7. Trillville/Lil Skrappy, Chopped & Screwed (Warner Brothers) 8. Jack Johnson, In Between Dreams (Universal) 9…
Roadrunner Records is celebrating its 25th anniversary by sending some of its favorite baby bands all over the country. In previous years, the tour had acts like Chimaira and Machine Head, but this year’s lineup is the most diverse so far, with both metal and hardcore bands. Deserving special attention…
ash_cash: hey ry ryanc: hey ash ash_cash: i saw you on the carson daly show the other night ryanc: really? did you like it? my band’s got 40 kind of sadness sounding really good I think ash_cash: your hair looked awesome! did you use the alterna sculpting putty i told…
If you’ve missed the Chicago Sessions at Counter Culture (2330 East McDowell Road) this month, which brought out Chi-town house music auteurs DJ Lego and Lady D, you won’t want to skip the last installment, a performance this Saturday, March 26, by Djeremy. A founder of the online house collective…
Chicago’s Sweep the Leg Johnny was always a great band. But that sax? Had to go. Amid all the group’s streamlined savagery, singer Steve Sostak’s ungodly squawking was about as welcome as a turd in a hot tub. So it’s with one hand on the doorknob and the other holding…
Wow. A year ago, if you had told me that I would regard Canada’s Comeback Kid highly, and utter “best album I’ve heard in at least a year” about its disc, I would have laughed in your face. I was mostly against positive (“posi”) hardcore music, because I don’t enjoy…
On his affable comeback album, Billy Idol just barely succumbs to the demon that haunts Hollywood recording studios, whispering in the ear of every aging rocker, “Better tack on some drum loops for the Hip-Hop Generation, old man!” That leaves most of Devil’s Playground for the original arena punk to…
Jane’s Addiction fans reached for the Zeppelin, and Strokes fans uncovered the Velvet Underground. All’s well in geekdom. But now El Paso, Texas, outfit the Mars Volta returns with a second full-length, challenging indie rawkers to reference their . . . King Crimson and Yes albums?!? Frances the Mute is…
Love — as Pat Benatar sagely noted — is a battlefield, and on the remarkable third album from Montreal indie-rock collective Stars, the bullets have been spent, the mines exploded, and all one can do in the aftermath of romance gone awry is somehow find a way to survive a…
Woe to hip-hop. Sometime in the past year, mainstream MCs became so venal that you don’t so much listen to them as vicariously experience their bloat of self-importance. Meanwhile, a once-hot underground got colonized just enough to lose its thunder, blurring the line to the point that DJ Hi-Tek and…
Sometimes, the early band on the bill is the one worth your dollars. Last year, when that glorified ’80s tribute band The Killers rode the success of their debut record, Ambulance Ltd. opened for them, promoting a far superior rookie effort. Without a sexy marketing hook to guide them, these…
If you think this is a reunion of the U.K. Mono-monikered band that won trip-hop infamy with Formica Blues in the ’90s, forget it. But don’t expect to be disappointed — this altogether different Mono is an instrumental band from Tokyo that’s heavily influenced by Mogwai and Godspeed. And who…
1. Jack Johnson, In Between Dreams (Universal) 2. The Mars Volta, Frances the Mute (Universal) 3. 50 Cent, The Massacre (Aftermath) 4. Death Cab for Cutie, The John Byrd EP (Barsuk Records) 5. Living Legends, Classic (Legendary Music) 6. RZA and Keb Darge, Kings of Funk (Rapster) 7. Gratitude, Gratitude…
With its previous albums, Thievery Corporation’s adoration for the cocktail lounge could wear thin. But The Cosmic Game embraces a broader song-based collection, buoyed by outside vocalists both familiar and exotic. And Rob Garza and Eric Hilton make the most of their A-list guests. “Marching the Hate Machines (Into the…
Back with thicker bounce and deeper funk than 2003’s brittle Bazooka Tooth, NYC MC Aesop Rock takes a step toward his musical origins while backpacking ever closer to the perfect flow. Rock’s loopy, wide-mouth baritone is easily one of the most recognizable voices in hip-hop, and its near-manic intensity is…
By calling itself Robbers on High Street, this Brooklyn band dares you to guess its influences, and many of them are fairly obvious. There’s snarling guitar reminiscent of the Kinks, vocal harmonies inspired by the Beatles, and a lead singer who could double for the Zombies’ crooner Colin Blunstone. What’s…
