As I promised when I wrote the review of the KYI show with 7 Seconds, I bought their new album, From Companionship to Competition, and gave it a listen. First of all, stop reading if you don’t like hardcore, because this album won’t build any bridges into your world. While it’s a considerable step forward from the cacophony of 2001’s… Read more »
When I first got pretty serious about music, I remember the idea of “selling out” being a big deal. I said it a lot about bands that I didn’t like and bands that changed their sound or signed a major label deal. But I never really considered what I meant when I said it. It was just a nice catch-all… Read more »
Stoner rock is largely thought of as a sub-genre of heavy metal, but Queens of the Stone Age, perhaps its most prolific band, far transcends its limitations. This has been increasingly true as they’ve regenerated from the ashes of Kyuss. Now that they’re really just the Josh Homme show on their new album, Lullabies to Paralyze, it’s more true than… Read more »
Barsuk Records released a political fundraising comp last year called Future Soundtrack for America. At first glance, the track listing looks almost too eclectic. It includes the avant-garde pop of David Byrne and They Might Be Giants, the pop-punk of Jimmy Eat World and Blink-182, the alt-folk of Bright Eyes and Elliott Smith, the Americana leanings of the Old 97s… Read more »
Everyone knows about Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Street Survivors (with the band pictured in flames just before the tragic plane crash) and many also know about the Who’s Who Are You cover (with Keith Moon sitting in a chair bearing the words “not to be taken away” on the last album before death did in fact take him away). But these are… Read more »
While I don’t think Black Flag had derivitive music in mind when they wrote that line, the rage easily be applied. Chuck recently asked me to listen to a few tracks off of Anberlin’s Blueprints for the Black Market. Having little background in punk and emo, he wasn’t sure if it was really good (just like I’m usually not sure… Read more »
The new And You’ll Know Us By the Trail of Dead album, Worlds Apart, is pretty much incredible. The first track came on and it was like a post-hardcore Queen. The following track was more like straightforward emo and I started thinking that this might be a transitional album where they try some new things, but aren’t quite ready to… Read more »
50 Cent is really just a Britney Spears who’s been shot nine times. The whole idea of him as a credible artist is based on him getting shot and not his contribution to the music released under his name. He must be real if he’s been shot, right? Seriously, when you boil it down, he’s no more talented a rapper… Read more »
Three Way Tie for Last is like a punk rock “O Brother Where Art Thou.” It made sense to put the two together. The everyman genuineness of good punk has a certain commonality with the everyman genuineness of old-time country and bluegrass. This Bike is a Pipe Bomb packages it all up in an album about the struggles of the… Read more »
The new Kills album, No Wow, is like an album of love songs with all the romance of a seedy strip club. W’s sensuous, almost bluesy vocals have the allure and raw sex of an erotic dancer while Hotel’s mechanical neo-new wave beats are a reminder that you can’t touch. Hotel’s fuzzy garage guitar is just enough edge to make… Read more »