This Is Not The World, the third record from post-punk devotees The Futureheads, finds them not so much moving forward or backward as sitting still and reducing their sound to something more easily digestible. Think of it this way: If 2004's The Futureheads and 2006's News and Tributes are a steak dinner, This Is Not The World is a steak dinner pill to be eaten on board the space shuttle. This isn't at all an insult. Rather, the band simply...
As Minneapolis-based rockers Tapes ‘N Tapes—Josh Grier (guitar, vocals), Jeremy Hanson (drums), Matt Kretzmann (keyboards), and Erik Appelwick (bass guitar)—released their acclaimed sophomore album, Walk It Off, it was inevitable that a U.S. tour would follow. They played First Avenue in their hometown on April 10 and weaved their way across this country with stops in New York, Philly, Atlanta, Los Angeles (Where Ground Control caught them with White Denim) and finished up in Denver, CO. There are a few...
On a personal note, it needs to be said that I sat on The Ting Tings’ debut for a little over a week, listening to it repeatedly, trying to figure out what I liked about it and how I was going to review it. Then it occurred to me; at the dawn of the Eighties, punk bands discovered what fun it was to make people dance, and so groups like the Talking Heads and Blondie softened up and jumped into...
It almost feels like sacrilege to say it, but more than most of the “new underground” bands that surfaced in the post-Nirvana maelstrom that suddenly found so many acts with readymade credibility (bands as far flung as The Flaming Lips, Constantines and Beck were all ranking members of this crew), few seemed to need the presence of a major label so badly as The Dandy Warhols. Always flaunting a significant pop jones and boasting a mercurial writing palette along with...
Who would have thought that going home again would be the catalyst that Sloan needed to experience a rebirth? Having recently resurrected their own label, Murderecords, and rejoined its roster for the first time in sixteen years, Sloan established carte blanche for themselves to follow up 30-track monster Never Hear The End Of It from 2006. Rather than attempting to go even bigger though, for their first album back the band chose to cut Parallel Play in their Toronto rehearsal...
After watching Death Angel absolutely rule Slim's only three months earlier, I gotta admit that I didn't think there was any way that they could possibly do it again. Now that the band has been on tour for a few months (their first in over seventeen years) I figured it would be damn near impossible for them to give the same amount of energy as they did the last time they played their hometown of San Francisco. I also knew...
When Ground Control photographer Muhammad Asranur caught The Dresden Dolls at The Fillmore in San Francisco, he experienced more than just a concert. In fact there was so much that GC's editors received an entire folder of photos dedicated to the goings-on surrounding the show, in addition to the performances of The Dresden Dolls and Vermillion Lies. What follows are some notes from the evening: The whole evening was festive. As we waited in the line outside, we were greeted...
If your echo-y vocals and plinking piano quota has been rather lacking this year, then take heart: The Walkmen have announced the release of their fourth album You & Me (fifth if you count Pussycats, which we totally do). The album—which was written over the course of two years in sessions split between Philly and New York—will be proceeded by a small tour in August (including Bumbershoot and the Rifflandia Festival) to whet appetites and stir up a frenzy. That's...
Although it was the "coldness" of Ladytron's kraut-inspired analog drenched music that first attracted me to them, I have remained a huge fan of the band as their music has continued evolved. With each album Ladytron's sound has warmed and morphed into a perfect combination of electronic synth and pop, and having heard a few tracks off the soon-to-be-released Velocifero, I knew this album was going to be no exception. It had been a couple of years since I had...
Last year when Brant Bjork and his Bros released Somera Sol, it found the singer finally making his exit from the alt-stoner rock box he helped to furnish with Josh Homme in Kyuss for the grungier climes of Chicago-esque, martini-brandishing sardonic rock a la Urge Overkill. It worked—audiences cheered and Bjork seemed to take well to the poppier format. What no one could have guessed however is that, with Somera Sol, the singer was simply looking for (and found) another...