With not a melody, harmony or note wasted, Sloan is at its memorable, well-crafted best on _The Double Cross.
There’s something to the music of Romania’s Negura Bunget that’s captivating, fascinating and unique in a way that most run-of-the-mill black metal bands can’t pull off.
ROCKABILLY- The Twang Heard ‘Round The World is an illustrated history of the genre.
Last Rape from Texas and the UK’s Pollutive Static join forces to unleash their individual wall-of-static sounds on ears that appreciate pain.
In case you’re wondering what could possibly justify such a cheeseball album title, The Case Files is a compilation of Peter Case‘s “demos, outtakes, one live shot & other rarities” from as recent as 2009 and as far back as the mid-80s.
Portland, Oregon trio Explode Into Colors existed for a brief time, and this collection documents why their split was and is unfortunate.
Lucas has flirted with pop on most of the Gods and Monsters disks, of course, but this is the first album on which he’s carried a vision of succinct, catchy songs all the way through.
This fifth full-length release shows the musickal magicians constantly refining their sound, but staying true to the original ideas behind the band.
Now that Rasputina has been in existence for nearly two decades, it’s obviously time to clean out the closet.
Some post-rock bands choose to concentrate on bright sounds of hope while others try to capture what doom feels like. This Will Destroy You falls into both categories.
British musician Alexander Tucker made his rep as an electronic experimentalist, but apparently the lure of the song was too strong.
Love Earth Music celebrates its 50th release with DOG‘s best and ugliest album.
The production is appropriately dirty and analog for a tribute to The Sonics, and all the essential elements of the music are in place: organ, guitar, saxophone, and gritty blues howl.
One of the best bits about this music critic gig is watching gifted artists get better and better.
Misogynistic, crude, racist, and generally offensive. But what did you expect from the final backing band of GG Allin? Did you even look at the cover? If you’re looking for subtlety, look away.
Confessions… finds head honcho Robbie Quine in a whimsical, dreamy mood delivering a psychedelic pop masterpiece that explores the outer regions of head music.
Jazz trumpeter Elliott Caine propels his music forward with passion, grace and that certain charm that seemed to disappear at the end of the ’60s when things went either “out there” or the fusion route.
A recent Record Store Day release, this tribute to Guided by Voices is a surprisingly strong, cohesive tribute to the Dayton, Ohio wizards.
Recording quickly and simply, Kilgour and his band don’t mess about trying to be innovative or genre-bending – they simply get on with the business of making great guitar pop.
It’s the kind of punk rock that makes you want to get extremely drunk and act like an idiot, and I love every second of it.
Boogie Monster packs a megaton of sounds, both loud and pleasing, and offers you something more with every listen.
Two hauntingly beautiful compositions by the late ambient composer Dani Long, under her moniker Chubby Wolf.
Clearly influenced by Radiohead and Porcupine Tree and sharing space with peers Engineers, Anathema and Nosound, Gazpacho is far more interested in melody and texture than in virtuosity or complexity.
Strong Oi! with more of a hard rock bent, i.e., a strong Rose Tattoo influence among the football chants and bar chords.
Power trio Tia Carrera has been serving giant fistfuls of improvised psychedelic heavy rock for long enough now to become grizzled veterans of the Austin music scene.
This collection of songs from LA’s first DIY punk label is almost more of a “Best of…” documenting classics from LA’s original vibrant punk rock scene.
Small Source of Comfort, his 25th studio album, hearkens back to his roots, with a variety of easy melodies set in acoustic arrangements that highlight his nimble guitar work as much as his carefully wrought lyrics.
If you like your punk rock to sound like it came out of England circa 1979, then this is for you.
With each track, we are allowed a glimpse into a world of heartbreak and honesty, confessions from a journal set to music and shared with whoever dares to hear them. Each song is stripped down to the barest essentials: a woman, her guitar, and her soul.
Apparently leading rising progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me isn’t quite enough for Tommy Rogers, AKA Thomas Giles, so he lets his muse out to play on Pulse.
They may not sound like how you remember them, but the New York Dolls are back with the first essential summer record of 2011.
Basically, it’s two Texan bands playing alternative rock that’s heavily rooted in the ’90s.
Montreal’s Bad Uncle are a rough and steamy band of miscreant gypsy-punx held together by duct tape, whisky and mad chops. While there’s a band like this in everybody’s city (right?), Bad Uncle are head and shoulders above the crowd for myriad reasons.
This is the sound of a band worried less about having to prove themselves as Oasis Mk. II and more about simply making a good record with cracking tunes.
Robertson keeps his sonic ambitions in check, eschewing gimmicks and letting the songs speak for themselves.
These would be excellent songs to sing to a first-born child at bedtime.
A 7” that revels and succeeds in its minimalism and honesty.
Tiers and Other Stories, the latest opus from pop auteur Richard X. Heyman, is at once both ambitious and modest.
Vatican City is known more for pope hats than garage rock, though where better to get your rock’n‘roll than from the most (arguably) influential city on the planet?
Hunx And His Punx have captured what I imagined a trip to the corner malt shop in the 1950’s to be like. This is an excellent and fuzzy update of classic 50’s American pop.
Let’s hear it for the rock & roll true believers, the ones who pick up that guitar and step up to that microphone with the confidence that rock & roll will save your soul.
Those who find ghostly wisps of shoegazing faerie dust appealing will likely find Eifelian similarly appealing.
With inspiration from an unlikely source, Mike Watt started a record label and put out his magnum opus.
Sun in the Satellite take a more subtle approach to heady music, as opposed to the bombastic wall-of-sound that you usually get.
If you’re into heavy oi street punk, this is a slab of vinyl you won’t want to miss.
This cassette, a pretty chunk of sick right-brained rock jams, is a tasty lemon-lime work of art. These kids make a lot of deprecating and sly jokes in of and around the tunes, which have a quick-cut basement 4 track feel which is fairly consistent. They don’t take anything seriously (thank fucking god) not even The Beatles .
If By Yes is, in the main, a collaboration of singer Petra Haden and keyboardist/producer Yuka Honda, a project born out of nearly a decade of casual songwriting and friendship.
