I’ve come to the realization that I listen to well over 100 albums each year, dear readers. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but having to sift through the utter sea of shit that qualifies as music these days in order to bring you the highlights...
No one likes a show-off. I know that’s certainly the case for me and, in addition to a certain lack of patience, I have a low tolerance for people’s bullshit. This general sense of impatience isn't something I'm proud of (because, come on –...
What's a band to do when, as the ink dries on a brand new record contract, its members realize that have very little in the way of fresh material for use on a new album? Raid the B- and C-side content in the vault and assemble an album from those previously...
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, “Huh? Lynyrd Skynyrd – that band responsible for writing a song which has become the butt of the most enduring joke in the rock book, that band who told Neil Young where to go in one of their other...
Imagine, for a moment, an alternate universe where Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin, Charlotte Caffey, Kathy Valentine and Gina Schock had been born in stately Ukraine rather than Los Angeles and, rather than journeying down to the beach and discovering fame and fortune...
There aren't many people that would argue Three Days Grace had an easy trip up a very crowded street when they first appeared in 2003. At that time, an angry band whose muse was centered in an angry and resentful place had it made and it didn't hurt that Three...
The romantic image that most music fans tend to harbor when they think about the process of making a new album is always the same: even the most social of bands will retire to comfortable studio confines after a regimen of touring and songwriting, where they'll...
The process of deconstruction – of values, of style, of established forms, of any number of aesthetics – can be a very salacious thing when done well and with a bit of foresight. Simply ripping shit up arbitrarily before gluing it back together and...
I had to look twice to make sure I'd put the right album on for review as the lead-off track from Another Link In The Chain, “Birds Of Prey” kicked into gear. Then I went online to see if there were two bands called The Junction. Incidentally –...
'Designer impostor' products are funny things. On one hand, they're rather mawkish and genuinely looked down upon because, as the term implies, they're bargain-basement replicas of established and lauded matter. Sometimes they don't even bear a...