The whole girl-with-a-guitar genre is like your first “A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle” bumper sticker: Its overt earnestness is initially very empowering and, subsequently, extremely embarrassing once you’ve moved out of the dorm and into the messy, “post-feminist” world full of things like strap-ons…
In contrast to the starry-eyed ode to Southern California that was So Much For The City, The Thrills’ sunny sentiments grow cloudy on its sophomore outing, Let’s Bottle Bohemia. The Irish quintet still mines retro references — guests such as former Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks and arranger Michel…
The voice and vintage-R&B vibe of Joss Stone’s 2003 debut, The Soul Sessions, were so at odds with reality — how could the second coming of Aretha be a lily-white British teen? — that it’s still hard to believe. But not only does Mind, Body & Soul repeat the trick,…
Richmond, Virginia’s Lamb of God is a refreshing anomaly in the world of mainstream metal. They love a swinging 6/8 beat more than a solid 4/4 thud, they feature a clean-shaven guy with short hair, and on Ashes of the Wake, their third album, they espouse a staunchly anti-Dubya, heartily…
After a quarter-century of showing so-called punks what it really means to be radical, Dutch cult favorites the Ex still have a lot to say. Combining full-throttle aggression with well-crafted arrangements and brazen experimentalism, the group’s latest two-CD set is variously witty and didactic, earnest and ironic, poetic, political, and…
Hip-hop fans who can’t wait for Little Brother’s major-label debut on Atlantic next year should pick up Foreign Exchange’s Connected. The result of a collaboration, initiated by telephone, between Dutch producer Nicolay and Little Brother rapper/vocalist Phonte, it finds the latter riffing with various MC friends on real-talk issues over…
Hipster street hustlers are secretly celebrating the impending visit of the Nova Scotian ratfish, a.k.a. Richard Terfly, a.k.a. Buck 65, this Sunday, October 17, at the P.I. in Tempe. (A “ratfish” is born a Pisces in the year of the rat, if you don’t know). Buck 65 hit the scene…
Much has been made about the fact that Treble & Tremble, Earlimart’s latest album, was influenced by the death of the band’s friend Elliott Smith. But you don’t need to be enamored of Smith’s moody melancholy to appreciate the growth of this band from Grandaddy wanna-bes into formidable, thoughtful craftsmen…
Under the name Badly Drawn Boy, Damon Gough’s first album, The Hour of Bewilderbeast, was one of those works of shining brilliance that tend to haunt their creator, as critics often dash an artist’s every ensuing effort against that definitive debut. The ghost of Bewilderbeast rattles some chains on BDB’s…
Today’s rap game is suffocating in the stale humidity produced by a slew of blowhard MCs. As sweat seeps through its pores like slow lava, out of nowhere appears the Pharcyde with an ice-cold pitcher of Arnold Palmers and a platter of fresh fruit in the form of Humboldt Beginnings…
It seems fitting that Green Day’s latest album is titled American Idiot. After all, the band made its name — not to mention its millions — being as much. Self-deprecation aside, however, with Idiot, Green Day has somehow managed to pour syrup on yesterday’s Dookie and, incredibly, turned it into…
It’s amusing that a band that sets its sights so high with its name (Palomar is an observatory that houses one of the world’s biggest telescopes) ends up writing songs concerning earthly matters. But throughout the 14 tracks on Palomar III, the coed Brooklyn quartet contemplates everything from the Old…
It’s been a busy seven days for Grae. The songs give This Week a diary feel, illustrating conflicts, regrets, frustration, and loves lost. Grae’s flow streams out of her conscience, as if she’s having a revelatory dialogue with each listener. “P.S.” pours like gasoline dousing an old flame, and Grae’s…
Special Gunpowder is the first original recording from DJ /rupture, a producer who initially caused a stir with his 2001 mix tape, Minesweeper Suite. On that disc, he deftly blended everything from disco classics to hardcore techno and dub reggae tracks, earning widespread acclaim as one of the top DJs…
With The Dames’ new album blaring, we can’t help wanting to jump around wildly — we’re overcome with girl power, but not in the Spice Girls sense. Tagged “the demon spawn of The Donnas and Black Flag,” Phoenix’s all-female punk rock trio follows up last year’s Sin and Tonic with…
Mush is a Los Angeles indie label specializing in electronica deconstructionists, all with names that sound like overnight FM DJs. Among the acts on the Mush Tour lineup, Her Space Holiday comes closest to having conventional song structures — Marc Bianchi’s whispering delivery will spook out Elliott Smith fans waiting…
It would be wrong to dismiss Seattle’s Blood Brothers as a run-of-the-mill hardcore or punk band. Yes, singers Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney are capable of screams and screeches more grating than Godzilla’s nails on a giant chalkboard. But it doesn’t take a genius to see the group’s penchant for…
The most amazing thing about this British quartet’s second album is that it got made at all, considering how co-singer/guitarist Pete Doherty has spent the last two years getting nicked for drugs and switchblades, being jailed for burglarizing his bandmate’s flat, and being shipped off to rehab for heroin and…
Tom Waits is back, and he’s a little hard to love. The man capable of writing a ballad as fragile as a convict’s conscience just wants to make the sonic equivalent of a dirty bomb. The result is an album full of wicked foot-stompers, riddled with minor-key buzzmuffle and drenched…
If you have to rip someone off, at least shoot for the good shit. New York City’s the Exit picks some great bands to plagiarize, but oddly enough, the trio covets its victims’ more lackluster work: U2’s October, the Police’s Synchronicity, Bad Brains’ I Against I. One man’s trash, though,…
It’s difficult to overstate the impact of De La Soul’s debut release, 3 Feet High and Rising. Spawned by a thriving New York scene with artists such as KRS-One, Kool Moe Dee and Big Daddy Kane, De La Soul took rap in a different direction, eschewing the heavily funk and…
There aren’t but a few guitarists from the ’80s underground with the skill of Dave Alvin, and none with the versatility. Whether leading punkabilly rockers The Blasters, playing with gothic-punkers The Flesheaters, standing in for Billy Zoom as guitarist for L.A. punk originals X, or forging his own catalogue of…
