If one really looks at the Cold War Kids' history of releases, it's possible to see that a massive screw-up of an album was inevitable, the way the band was working. When the band started in 2006, they made an impressive mark with Robbers & Cowards, and had indie rock fans excited for good reason; the songs were solid and instantly memorable, and the performances were equally so. Emboldened, the band then began a tradition of regularly renovating their sound...
Welcome back ta da land o' da livin' junky! Awright, yer right, I took a week off, sue me. But hey – that jus' means yer dat much hungrier fer some new, fresh, free SWAG now don'it? Good thing I brought a big bag wit' me dis week. Okay, le's get right to it then – I gotta little somethin' fer every taste 'ere. I got some indie rock like The Cloud Nothings, some punk rock like The Descendents ann'a...
While no album that Rob Zombie has released since going solo has really tanked commercially, the hard truth is that it has been a solid ten years since the singer released a good album of new music. That might sound damning, but it's true; lots of Rob Zombie's albums have come out and proven to be perfectly listenable for a little while, but they've proven to have less and less staying power as time has worn on. The speed at...
Ever since The Flaming Lips completed the album cycle supporting At War With The Mystics in 2006, the band has seemed intent on moving away from every conventional music structure which might imply a sense of warmth and get as far outside of common pop conventions as possible. The first step came just a few months after Mystics' release, when Wayne Coyne compiled the 20 Years Of Weird album and started blurring all of the lines which could have contained...
The last few years have been surprisingly uncertain ones for Billy Bragg. After the singer finished his contract with Elektra in 2002 with England, Half English, he chose to seek his fortunes elsewhere and landed briefly on ANTI- Records. While 2008's Mr. Love & Justice (the singer's only album for ANTI-) was received well enough, Bragg's wanderlust endured and, after an extended stay in limbo, the singer has finally landed in good company with the Dine Alone stable. So what...
The beauty of Shotgun Jimmie's music has always been the perfect purity of its heart. Since first appearing before listeners with a group called Shotgun & Jaybird in 2003, “Shotgun” Jimmie Kilpatrick has embodied a charmed (and charming) musical persona in that there is no question whether or not the sentiments imparted by his songs are true (everyone knows they are), but Jimmie can melt fans' faces with white hot passion too – when the mood strikes him. Each successive...
It's so nice to have Mudhoney back. With some alt-rock and grunge bands trying to “change with the times” and alienating a lot of older fans with that ambition (see Jane's Addiction, Alice In Chains and The Melvins) and others trying to act like 1993 wasn't almost twenty years ago (see Soundgarden and the Smashing Pumpkins), it's nice to have a band with a bit of history in it making new music which feels new, but doesn't forget that history....
By 1995, the alt-rock scene in Seattle was already well on its wat to falling apart from exposure and the evils associated with it. By then, Kurt Cobain was dead, in-fighting, substance abuse and a general sense of dissatisfaction had started to dissolve Soundgarden from the inside out, Pearl Jam was fighting with Ticketmaster (and suffering from substance problems much more quietly) and Alice In Chains' vaunted excesses were beginning to catch up with them as well. It wasn't a...
At sixty-eight years old, Eric Clapton is admitting he's an old man. That's the message I get from Old Sock, his latest studio release. As I listen to it, I picture Clapton in a rocking chair on the porch (probably in some sunny clime, like the cover photo), strumming his guitar and singing some songs. Almost like he's celebrating his retirement. It's not just the standards (songs older than Clapton himself) which dominate this CD that put that image in...
If ever a record embodied the possibility of a new wave of dream-pop music manifesting somewhere in the music spectrum, it would be on Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO – The Besnard Lakes' fourth album. In listening, those who experience the record will have to admit that there is exactly nothing tangible about it – no instrumental part moved forward directly to present itself as the focal point of attention and the vocals do not offer any of the lyrical...