I don't know that I have ever seen any band work the crowd to the point of a near riot without even hitting the stage, but Zakk Wylde and Black Label Society did just that on Friday night at The Fillmore. With a huge BLS branded curtain covering the stage, while...
Gather round kiddos, it’s musical story time, and you know who that means—The Decemberists! With The Hazards of Love, the wily troubadours mix up their sound into a metal rock/rock opera/folksy country mélange while sticking with what they do best:...
Neko Case is having a party, and you get to listen in. While it’s not unusual to have collaborations on albums—this being her fifth—Case takes what usually is a get-together with a few friends and makes it an all-out reunion party. Joining her on her...
An obsession with death is often a haunting and disturbing thing, but where White Lies are concerned, it’s a source of musical inspiration. From the very first strains of “Death,” you know you’re in for something big—the building synth...
While it's inevitable for everyone, age is almost invariably least kind to metal bands. Because the music is so (some would say proudly) aggressive and the players that make it undergo such spectacular exertions making it, it shouldn't be surprising that the...
Sometimes I just want to be entertained. As much as I love going to hot, cramped, shithole venues that reek of body odor and beer, and having my ears assaulted with screaming guitars and blood-curling screams of death, I admit that sometimes it's cool to hit a big...
Some bands are just unable to hide when they haven't figured out how to articulate that thing which has captured their imagination and, as good as a record might be, the band simply sees it as another stepping stone in a vast work in progress. Don't get the...
It's raining in Pomona. The blocks around the Glass House are populated with shuttered businesses and craters where buildings once stood. One of my companions relates how another venue used to be right where a fenced-off hole now sits just across the street from...
Over the last eleven years and five albums, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead has evolved from purveyors of the densest, most martially anthemic rock n' roll on the planet into thematic and delicately layered musical dramatists of a sort the world...
Sometimes the most gratifying and exciting creative turns a band can make are not the big ones. Sometimes it is the tiny tweaks that crop up along the way – rather than the grandiose departures in form or style – that re-ignite the fire and end up...