These days it feels all too rare to find a “heavy” band that doesn’t fit into some neat little categorization or sub-categorization — doom metal, stoner metal, black metal, all these rigid little boxes upon boxes bands get shoved into…
The first time I stumbled across Athens/Asheville gang Reptar, I honestly had no idea what the hell was happening. I walked into their debut EP, Oblangle Fizz, Y’all, pretty much blind…
Take the most stately, delicately grand — but not overwhelming — music Kate Bush ever recorded, all fragile, glacially beautiful keys and soaring, angelic vocals, then weld to it a funkier, more ’80s-influenced sound…
An hour didn’t seem so long to wait once we entered the Senses Fail tour bus. La June and I had arrived promptly at 3 o’clock, looking for someone to speak to about the interview we had set up at 4…
The last time I saw The Hold Steady, they were playing Walter’s to a packed-in crowd of diehard fans and seemingly new converts, and it was — hand on my heart — one of the most amazing shows I’d ever seen…
To paraphrase the great comedy Blazing Saddles, “What in the Wide Wide World of Sports is this?” HORSE the band is a quintet of musicians from California that specialize in something called “Nintendocore”…
Battle for the Sun is a much-anticipated CD for those die-hard Placebo fans who were disappointed by the band’s last album, Meds. This CD, number six, reverts back to band’s old style, with somewhat squealing guitars over Brian Molko’s nasal but forever reassuring voice…
Electric Owls’ Ain’t Too Bright is an album that I’d recommend to a dope-smoking pre-pubescent. If nothing else, you can expand your street drug vocab. From the song “Kamiakin”: “Summertime won’t be so bad / We can all get high over at my uncle’s trailer / He’s a real cool guy…”
From Autumn To Ashes’ Live at Looney Tunes captures the band’s classics in their live form for the fans, giving in to the all-out jams of post-hardcore and metal. It has the energy and atttiude of any other band and, at that same time, it has a personal feel that’s rarely recorded live…
The Loud Wars is one of those albums that makes me want to go dig out an album I used to play ’til it felt like the CD player laser would burn out; in this case, the album they make me want to go grab is The Dismemberment Plan’s 2001 classic, Change…
What do you do when the big-name, influential as all get-out metalcore band you’re doing time in crashes and burns? In the case of From Autumn To Ashes’ Francis Mark and Rob Lauritsen, well, you get a chance to finally do that side project-type thing together that you’ve wanted to do for a while now…
What the hell happened here? Granted, it’s been a while since I checked in with the band, but the last time I checked, Reggie and the Full Effect was a whip-smart, self-referencing, sarcastic-ier-than-thou cold shower of a “project” that didn’t take itself (or the music it appropriated) at all seriously…
Why do I keep doing this to myself with this band? I’d enjoyed what I’d heard of Saves The Day’s older stuff, so when Stay What You Are came out, I picked it up, mostly on the strength of “At Your Funeral”…and promptly discovered that the rest of the album was just “eh,” at best…
No, I’ve never taken drugs (aside, mind you, from an accidental high I got just from being at a House of Pain/Cypress Hill concert, but that wasn’t intentional…). No real good reason why not…
After being subjected to wave after wave of pseudo new wave/indie rock/’80s inspired (Note: As I am sure half of said bands were barely born in the ’80s, I feel compelled to inform you that this reference to the ’80s sound is merely a reference point…)
Take a listen to Alexisonfire. No, not “Alex-is-on-fire”; the band’s name is Alexis-on-fire, taken from the world’s only lactating contortionist. And yes, you should be able to milk their new album for a few good tunes. I haven’t heard any of the albums before the band’s latest…
Damn, I hate that. You ever hear a song and swear you’ve heard something very much like it before, but can’t figure out where, even after ransacking your CD collection for those bands whose albums you heard only once? It’s like the aural equivalent of deja vu, I suppose…
