It’s been nearly four years since the London-based Bloc Party released an album together and, despite swirling rumors of falling outs (compounded by the release lead singer Kele Okereke’s solo album The Boxer in 2010), there was never an official Bloc Party breakup. While the band’s prolonged hiatus saw the ascension of groups who may share some of their aesthetic sensibilities – The Temper Trap, Passion Pit, Twin Shadow all appear on that list – it certainly didn’t change their...

Can history really repeat itself even if the events are well aware they're unfolding the same way the second time? One almost has to wonder if the members of Judas Priest wondered the same thing when they began working on the deluxe edition, CD/DVD reissue of Screaming For Vengeance. Priest has, after all, seen a watershed renewal of interest in their work when they reissued British Steel in 2010; that release got the band back on the road to support...

Heya goons, How's it goin'ere junky? Time is gettin' short fer some o' youse, those chippy habits ya picked up ova da summa are gonna hafta go fer da school year comin' up, othawise yer gonna be dozin' off in class come Septemba. Ya gotta getcherself straight junky!

Awright, I done my community service fer the day, now le's getchu flyin' on yer otha habit: le's getcha hooked on what I foun'dis week. Dis week, I nabbed a little bitta everything...

No band in recent memory has been able to so perfectly encapsulate raw, urgent aggression like La Armada does on their self-titled album. That might sound like a bold statement, but listening proves that it's the only one which suits; La Armada's self-titled record (their third – but first since moving to Chicago from Dominican Republic) doesn't exactly make other new hardcore bands pale by comparison so much as just totally overshadowing them like a chilling pall. Part of that...

If ever there has been a band to shake me down to the very core of my being – to swoop down upon my unsuspecting head and snatch away any sense of knowing what the fuck is going on and why the fuck it’s happening – that band would be The Locust. Never have I seen such utter chaos as I did the dozen or more times I was able to bear witness to their live set; there, I saw...

The first real non-mainstream hip hop I ever heard was Aesop Rock, and I have my friend Jake to thank for that. I've always held the belief that, if you want the best of a genre, you go to the underground to get it. When I first heard Aesop Rock, I understood just how boring and watered down mainstream rap had gotten, and why I wasn't gravitating towards it. I should make it clear also, that hip hop isn't my...

What River City Tanlines has proven on their sophomore LP (their first album in six years) is that not every new thing has to be completely unique from everything in rock history; sometimes innovation can take a backseat to just making a sound that is big, bodacious and ballsy. Coast To Coast is a marvel which exists in that line of thinking as, from the first blast of “I Don't Get It,”singer/guitarist Alicja Trout, bassist Terrence Bishop and drummer John...

Although the summer of 2012 is past its mid-point, one of the biggest tours of the dog days is just getting out of the gate and is already proving to be one of the hottest tickets around. Legendary bands KISS and Mötley Crüe have teamed up for THE TOUR of 2012 and, when it's all said and done, the bands will have hit over forty cities nationwide.

 With combined album sales of almost 200 million, KISS and Mötley Crüe are...

The perfect facade inherent within modern folk music is that it feigns intimacy very well but, in truth, is very carefully measured, calculated and produced.some readers might recoil at such candid, crass cynicism, but think about it – as knee-bucklingly intimate as Bright Eyes can sound, has Connor Oberst ever really been as alone in a room as he seemed to be when the tapes rolled and captured “Simple In The Moonlight?” Probably not. Was it Neil Young's idea to...

Since as early as 1958 (four years into his recording career), there has been a succession of records which have compiled Elvis Presley's songs. A multitude of angles have been taken to produce these records; there have been compilations of Elvis' hits, gold records, spiritual songs, love songs, Christmas songs, rock songs, country songs, blues songs, songs which appeared on soundtracks, "Elvis Sings His Hits," "Elvis Sings The Hits Of Other People," "Other People Sing Songs That Elvis Made Famous...