With the release of Endgame, Rise Against commemorates it's ninth year as a band and, while that time has been marked by lineup changes, label changes and other alterations in the band's design and focus, this year marks the first time significant changes have...
As a point of clarification, I have to ask: who exactly coined the phrase “stoner rock” and applied it to languid, reasonably atonal and/or drone-y rock n' roll? It definitely wasn't a bunch of stoners, nor was it anyone who regularly associates...
Back in 2000, at the ripe old age of fifteen, I was introduced to a type of music that broke the mould of what I believed heavy metal to be. Metal to me was brash, ugly and dark. Down-tuned power chords and blast beats. Children Of Bodom’s Follow The Reaper swept...
The thing about first impressions is that they're perfectly superficial; whether they're good or bad is irrelevant because they're only representative of the tip of the iceberg and what lies beneath the surface might be considerably more substantial. In...
On Go-Go Boots, their eleventh studio record in just twelve years, The Drive-By Truckers are focused on the softer or more acoustic side of their sound. While most of their records have featured these quieter songs, this is their first album to focus entirely on their...
One of the fringe benefits to being in a band is that you're able to see the world doing something you love. Really, how great is that? If you're in a band and brave enough to hit the road in support of an album you made, there is the outside possibility that...
From the opening moments of her new album Blessed, it is clear that Lucinda Williams has some spring back in her step. That's not to say that she ever "lost it" – both 2006's West and 2008's Little Honey had some great moments – but...
It's incredible how times and practices in pop and rock music have changed over the years, but it's also lamentable to see and hear an increasing abandonment of subtlety in the form. There was a time when many bands subscribed to the idea that the notes left...
Congratulations junky, I didn't know you was gettin' married! Oh whazzat? Yer not? Christ on a rubber crutch, yed think you were wit' the primo bag o' gifts I got 'ere. This week has been great so far, an' lemme tell ya why… First, I...
As much fun as it can be to over-intellectualize a musician's growth and evolution from album to album, sometimes the changes that occur between points A and B in an artist's output are simply natural developments. The differences which exist between Daniel...