Darkest Hour’s new disc, Undoing Ruin, could easily beat up its first album, Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation, where the band was trying to be At the Gates. For that effort, Darkest Hour went so far as to record in Sweden with Fredrik Nordstrom (At the Gates, In Flames)…
On his 10th solo album, Frank Black approaches Southern roots and soul, not as a philanderer, but as a lover. Which stands to reason: Since 1998’s Frank Black & the Catholics, this head Pixie’s leering weakness for genre-play has gradually given way to something more heartfelt. The rich, dewy arrangements…
Punk rock history is littered with dismal attempts at creative growth, from the Angelic Upstarts’ New Wave misstep to Seven Seconds’ spiritual awakening. But on 13 Ft. & Rising, the California desert rats in Throw Rag make a satisfying step forward that’s unlikely to irk their biggest fans. And anyway,…
A sharp songwriter with the interpretive powers of a classic soul singer and the timbre of Jerry Lee Lewis in his prime, Joe Ely should be a country music icon. Then again, have the 30 years since Ely’s first solo work produced a single Nashville-friendly face that doesn’t cheapen fame?…
“I don’t pay taxes because I never file, I don’t do business that don’t make me smile,” sang Stephen Stills on his 1990 classic “Tree Top Flyer,” about a free-spirited smuggler. It’s what inspired Ray LaMontagne to leave his job at a Maine shoe factory. Instead of going to work…
Blag Dahlia wants to have his cake and eat you, too. The pop records that the slim, shady Dwarves front man (who compares himself to both Jesus Christ and Jack the Ripper) makes with pop producers often sound sweet — until you pay attention to the words. With sing-alongs about…
Like their collaborator Lil Jon, Atlanta’s Ying Yang Twins (the team of Kaine and D-Roc) burst onto the mainstream as the ambassadors of brash, bass-heavy urban club anthems, i.e., crunk. U.S.A. is expected to surpass the platinum achievement of its predecessor, Me & My Brother, and deservedly so. The Twins…
“This one’s for the ladies,” Mike Montoya murmurs, before the opening strains of Menso’s title track. Whether you are a lady or just want one, this disc contains a woman’s daily requirement of vulnerability, furry animals, and baffling danceworthiness. From lush arrangements to achingly brainy lyrics, each song is an…
Alkaline Trio has had a revolving door for band members since its inception in 1997. Yet somehow the three-piece emo band sounds consistent. With pop-driven music and lyrics depicting the agony and self-deprecation of breaking up and being rejected, the Chicago band has captured the broken hearts of emo kids…
Nearly a decade ago, exceptionally talented skins man Jimmy Chamberlin was the black sheep of the Smashing Pumpkins family, finally getting drummed out of the group (and publicly shamed by his bandmates) after a particularly egregious 1996 run with Racehorse Charlie that resulted in the overdose death of Pumpkins touring…
If you were born and christened “Michael Jackson,” you might be thinking about changing your name nowadays — perhaps to something like a disclaimer such as “Oh No.” That’s exactly what Oh No, the triple threat MC/producer/DJ brother of Madlib (Otis Jackson Jr.) did a while ago. Oh No’s swiftly…
Even if the name looks unfamiliar, chances are you remember Seu Jorge singing David Bowie covers in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou or playing nice guy turned rebel Knockout Ned in City of God. That last movie proved a summation of his life, being reared in Brazil’s favelas. Today…
Australian native Xavier Rudd is a musical madman; the ambidextrous multi-instrumentalist is proficient at guitar, percussion and didgeridoo, interlacing them into a sharp, dynamic echo of today’s funky folksters. Most interesting is that he plays them simultaneously. Solace is one man’s journey into sonic solitude and an aural testament to…
Calling John Hiatt a songwriter’s songwriter makes it sound like people don’t like him. People do — they’re just not as demonstrative as Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Iggy Pop and Bruce Springsteen, all of whom have paid the ultimate compliment by covering a John Hiatt song…
“The voices of hardcore and metal will be heard,” warns the Living Dead-themed official Web site of this tour. And while things won’t go quite as long as dawn, the show will get under way at the ungodly hour of 11 a.m., when most of us are zombies even with…
1. Gorillaz, Demon Days (Virgin) 2. Coldplay, X&Y (Capitol) 3. Black Eyed Peas, Monkey Business (A&M) 4. Foo Fighters, In Your Honor (RCA) 5. Various Artists, Look At All the Love We Found: A Tribute to Sublime (Cornerstone) 6. System of a Down, Mezmerize (Sony) 7. Dredg, Catch Without Arms…
There’s plenty of musical experimentation going around, thanks to the mounting trend of laptop recording, but when was the last time you actually heard something new, as in an identifiable flavor you’d never tasted? Well, here it is: The guitar/drums/upright-bass trio Asmodeus plays a precise combination of rockabilly and metal…
Well-scrubbed and enunciating clearly, the master entertainers in the Clumsy Lovers offer few concessions to the affected tastes of our time. Even the hook of authenticity, so fruitfully proffered by most bands with rootsy-folksy tendencies, is traded for Nashville-caliber professionalism by this Vancouver quintet. Armed with such uncool moves, the…
While shrieking, hanging-from-the-rafters front man Ian Svenonius and groovy bassist/chanteuse Michelle Mae led the Vespa-riding, white-belted indie kids in a gospel yeah-yeah revolution with The Make-Up during the late ’90s, their latest act, Weird War, has evolved — or is it devolved? — into a purveyor of glorious psych sleaze…
Scout Niblett is the nom de indie rock of one Emma Louise Niblett, a native of Nottingham, England (though currently residing in Oakland, California), whose raw, ranging, unhinged blues moans and wails place her in the same ballpark as fellow Brit Polly Jean Harvey, circa Rid of Me. Like ol’…
The Knitters — X members John Doe, Exene Cervenka and D.J. Bonebrake, augmented by then-Blaster Dave Alvin and current Red Devil Johnny Ray Bartel — recorded Poor Little Critter on the Road in 1985. The album consisted of the country and folk songs that inspired the music of X as…
Perhaps the only thing more self-indulgent than issuing a double album is planning a surprise party for yourself and then feigning astonishment when your guests emerge. Many such releases have been ostentatious excursions of masturbatory significance, while others (Bitches Brew, London Calling, Sign of the Times, Life After Death) have…
