Like Popeye and Jonathan Richman, Steve Forbert is what he is. In 28 years of playing sun-dappled heartland rock with the occasional sidelong glance of cynicism, he’s only gotten to sound more like his own earnest self. But then, you don’t expect a lot of shape-shifting from a Mississippi kid…
Psalm One’s The Death of Frequent Flyer is an uneven but compelling mix of pure rhyme skills and casual songwriting. One of the best songs on the 14-track disc is “Rapper Girls,” a souled-out attack on untalented female MCs that wraps around Psalm One’s chorus, “This is for my rapper…
Whatever your politics, you have to admit that the title of Impeach My Bush, the third album by Berlin-based raunch-rap mistress Peaches, is a joke whose time has come. (Titles might be Peaches’ true talent — see also 2003’s Fatherfucker.) Whether or not Impeach offers more than exemplary wordplay comes…
Kalas is Matt Pike’s new outfit, and for the Bay Area quintet’s nine-track debut he wields his ax only on a single cut (“Frozen Sun”). That’s because Pike’s primary role is that of a lead vocalist, which is kinda fucked up. Think about it: The dude from Asbestos Death, Sleep,…
Gender identity and uncomfortable intimacy are just hazy phrases for Portland’s Parenthetical Girls to knead into song. The band’s recent release, Safe as Houses, traverses themes of sex and shame from various perspectives, sung by a male (Zac Pennington) with a fragile falsetto. Surrounded by hauntingly minimal electronic pop, Pennington…
“There’s just something about them,” Kristin Allen-Zito sings-mutters to open her 2004 album Helium. Sounds like yet another coffeehouse singer with cigarette-stained vocals, a strummed acoustic guitar and cute “ooh”s in the background, but then she finishes the sentence — “that makes me want to stick my dick in/I know…
Signed while still in high school, Slightly Stoopid’s Miles Doughty and Kyle McDonald were probably the “raddest” of all dudes “gnarly,” smoking more weed than humanly possible and tossing out generic SoCal skate-punk. Nearly a decade later, the two may still love to party, but their sound has grown up…
Two well-established truisms are that Cleveland rocks, and that underground heroes Brandtson united all kids growing up on the skids with their massive back catalog on Deep Elm Records. However, on Hello, Control (the Clevo quartet’s sophomore effort for the Militia Group label), the band wonders why “Nobody Dances Anymore.”…
The nine gunshot wounds and subsequent bragging rights at Shady still belong to 50 Cent, but Obie Trice now carries in his skull a bullet (from a violent encounter last New Year’s Eve) and a memory (of his late labelmate Proof). Unlike the larger-than-life 50, Obie sounds genuinely scarred by…
The Raconteurs have the best Web site ever. Modeled in the style of the green-screen days of bulky supercomputers, the site (www.theraconteurs.com) is two-bit awesome, with text-heavy simplicity that ditches mouse controls in favor of keyboard-only commands. Nixing the Flash and the glitz, the Raconteurs do it old school, which…
Listening to Peregrine, the Appleseed Cast’s forthcoming album, you’d never know that the group got its start as an emo outfit named December’s Tragic Drive in Lawrence, Kansas, during the late ’90s. While peers such as the Get Up Kids have taken their adolescent emoting into alt-country territory, the Appleseed…
In the world of instrumental rock, Saxon Shore has little in common with the onanistic, sonically soulless noodling of Eric Johnson or the spaced-out, loosely constructed noise rock of Mogwai. For its latest album, the ensemble teamed with producer Dave Fridmann to produce ten tightly structured, richly layered instrumentals —…
1. Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere (Downtown) 2. Kool Keith, Return of Dr. Octagon (OCD Records) 3. Rise Against, The Sufferer and the Witness (Geffen Records) 4. Pearl Jam, Live at Easy Street (Exclusive) (J Records) 5. India Arie, Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship (Umvd Labels) 6. The Black Angels,…
Many bands revel in their roots, but few amble as close to the heartland as the Missouri-based Bottle Rockets. Their no-frills approach is tough and tenacious, reflecting an underdog attitude that tends to downplay resignation in favor of an occasional upward glance. Zoysia, their eighth studio set, provides the ideal…
St. Madness singer Prophet (né Patrick Flannery) won his battle with testicular cancer earlier this year, and now he’s ready to rock hard again with St. Madness’ newest album. Musically, St. Madness’ sound has always harked back to the old-school days of heavy metal, with crunchy power chords, screaming guitar…
Aloe Blacc, a onetime member of the L.A. hip-hop group Emanon, glides through his solo debut, Shine Through, with panache. Save for a few moments, he doesn’t rap. Instead, he sings a workingman’s blues on “Busking,” renders a lively Afrobeat version of John Legend’s “Ordinary People,” and then easily switches…
The adage goes that everything is bigger in Texas. Sure, Spoon may spartanly get by on the core songwriting skills of Britt Daniel and Jim Eno, but give credit to fellow Austinites Sound Team, which triples those ranks and gets similarly terse results. Originally a four-track recording project between guitarist…
It’s interesting, yet not all that surprising, to learn that when not working with the bicoastal, avant-garde duo Young People, singer Katie Eastburn is a dancer and choreographer. The band’s brooding third album bears aesthetics similar to a modern dance performance. Its minimalist piano, percussion, bass, and very sporadic guitar…
On their third album, the core members of I See Hawks in L.A. are joined by Chris Hillman (Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers), Rick Shea (Dave Alvin Band) and other heavies from L.A.’s alt-country gang. It’s the songwriting of the principal bandmates, though, that grabs your attention. Lead vocalist and guitarist…
Earlier this year, in a departure from its usual practice of signing Metalpalooza bait such as High on Fire and Nile, record label Relapse picked up a few instrumental-only bands, the most prized of which is semi-legendary progger Don Caballero, whose members are free on waivers from Touch and Go…
This year’s Ozzfest — the 11th annual orgy of leather, tattoos, long hair, beer, boobs, pit surfing, devil horns, heat exhaustion, and metal/hard rock of all varieties — is particularly notable for two reasons: For the first time in the tour’s history, namesake Ozzy Osbourne won’t be headlining the main…
The classic Sabbath/Led Zep/Motörhead style of metal is like one of cooking’s essential “mother sauces” — add just a few ingredients to that basic combination of cranked guitars, power drumming, and howled lyrics and you get all kinds of new flavors. Incorporate some mechanized beats and samples and you’ll have…
