Released: February 2, 2010 Label: Daykamp Records Dirt Mall’s last album, Got the Goat by the Horns, survived more on raw energy than on innovation or spectacular songwriting. The songs were solid, to be sure, but it was the kick behind them that really propelled the album. While that album was well-worth checking out, the band had to kick up… Read more »
Released: June 15, 2010 Label: SideOneDummy Records The '59 Sound, Gaslight Anthem's 2008 release, got a lot of comparisons to Springsteen. That was fair enough as there is no doubt that the band's sound was influenced by the godfather of their home state's rock and roll scene. However, what seemed to get lost in those comparisons, was that weren't simply… Read more »
Label: Clickpop Records (CD)/Topshelf Records (LP) Released: May 18, 2010 It's a little bit strange to put on an album by a young post-rock band and think, "This remind me of Yes!" For snobbier fans of the genre, it might be an immediate turn-off to see the comparison to the arena rocking prog dinosaur of days gone by, but fear… Read more »
Released: December 15, 2009 Label: Count Your Lucky Stars After last year's What It Takes to Move Forward, Empire! Empire! certainly seems like they are the very pinnacle of emo creativity and execution, breathing new life into a genre currently choking on its co-opted mainstream success. With the genre's elder statesmen like Sunny Day Real Estate and Promise Ring defunct… Read more »
May 18, 2010 The Ottobar, Baltimore, MD Thee Silver Mount Zion is an amazing band that pushes the possibilities of music to the point that they are hard to define. While post-rock seems to be the most common pigeonhole, even that term's undefined, forward-focused nature seems woefully inadequate. Frankly, before this show, I could appreciate SMZ's albums more that I… Read more »
May 11, 2010 Rams Head Live, Baltimore, MD When John Lydon exited the Sex Pistols, leaving behind his old moniker, few people expected that he would also be leaving behind the brash, visceral rawness of first generation punk to become a prime mover in the burgeoning musical explorations of post-punk. The difference between Never Mind the Bollocks and First Issue… Read more »
May 12, 2010 The Ottobar, Baltimore, MD Though the Buzzcocks have released more recent material, two albums in the last decade even, this tour was for their first two releases from way back in 1978 which were re-issued by Mute Records earlier this year and played in their entirety. That certainly sets up the potential for a show that’s… Read more »
View the statement from Wendy Dio on the official Ronnie James Dio site.
Released: May 18, 2010 Label: Capitol Records Few bands are so closely associated with a single decade as Duran Duran. That association, however, doesn’t always have positive connotations for them. By the time they soared up the US charts in 1982, new wave had become a bit of a cop-out genre, particularly its New Romantic flavor of which Duran Duran… Read more »
Label: self-released (CD and donation-based download) Released: March 16, 2010 Lately, it seems that Brooklyn’s cup runneth over with quality indie rock, so it’s getting harder and harder to separate the truly good (you know, the bands who are pushing their scene, not just tagging along) from the pack. Ludlow Lions doesn’t instantly solve that problem, because it’s hard to… Read more »