“Atmosphere finally made a good record . . . yeah, right, that shit almost sounds convincing,” Minneapolis-based MC Slug, head of the Rhymesayers collective and label, raps on “Trying to Find a Balance,” off Atmosphere’s 2003 Seven’s Travels LP. Actually Atmosphere’s put out a shitload of good records, the most…
Killswitch Engage’s music pulls no punches. It’s fast, heavy and doesn’t let up. Yet somehow this Massachusetts band was tapped to headline the Taste of Chaos tour with My Chemical Romance and The Used, two hardcore punk-rock bands that share Killswitch’s tendency to have fun on stage. Case in point:…
The greatest cult bands of recent decades — The Pogues, The Replacements, The Pixies — have been musical universes unto themselves. By that standard, Leatherface fits right in, even if the British band’s fan base is closer in size to a cult-of-a-cult. Sprouting around 1990 from melodic hardcore, Dickensian-named bandleader…
Sure, they’ve become an arena band, at least in their native U.K., but Welsh trio Stereophonics have needed a serious kick in the ass for a while now. It’s been extremely frustrating to watch the promise of their vibrant 1997 debut album, Word Gets Around, steadily dissipate via a string…
For the better part of the ’70s, TP Orchestre Poly-Rythmo (“TP” for tout puissant, or “all powerful”) served as the house band for the tiny African nation of Benin, acting both as self-contained funk band and session musicians for homeless vocalists. The group’s stateside profile is slight — an oversight…
1. Prefuse 73, Surrounded by Silence (Warp Records) 2. The Evens, The Evens (Dischord) 3. Pigeon John, Sings the Blues (Red Urban Records) 4. Queens of the Stone Age, Lullabies to Paralyze (Interscope) 5. Adolescents, Complete Demos 1980-1986 (Frontier Records) 6. Sole, Live From Rome (Anticon) 7. Enon, Lost Marbles…
Dateline Duluth, Minnesota — On Tuesday, a Minnesota district court judge threw out a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by 37-year-old Duluth native Brian Swerzyk against the indie rock trio Low and its label, Sub Pop Records. Swerzyk had claimed breach of contract and severe emotional distress after purchasing the band’s 2005…
Backstage at some nameless arena, the freakishly masked thrash-metal terrorists of Slipknot conduct their traditional pre-concert confab: “We really rocked the hizzle last night,” says frontman Corey Taylor (a.k.a. No. 8). “Although y’all are bummed that the crowds aren’t what they used to be, the single Duality from our newest…
While U2 without the hubris sounds like not only a bad idea, but a self-canceling one, The Devlins — preceding bands like Travis and Coldplay — have been exploring that gas planet for nearly a decade. And as it turns out, there’s life there after all, particularly in love songs…
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…
