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 in with their intricately interwoven guitar melodies atop keyboard licks that created harmonies, the likes of which had yet to be heard by my young and eager ears. Their...

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 Action Makes' case, those introduced to the band via their single released on Magnificent 7s four years ago were presented with the image of a band steeped in classic rock tradition (not for nothing did they draw comparisons to the 13th...

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 country-soul leanings. Recorded at the same time as 2010's The Big To Do, Go-Go Boots features songs from all three Truckers songwriters again, however it is worth noting that this is the second album...

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 you'll get to see places you wouldn't have had the opportunity to otherwise, and even make a few dollars (maybe) and win a few new fans...

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 Blessed is definitely a more consistent and inspired effort. It's tempting to say that Blessed is her best album since her 1998 breakthrough, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, because it delivers as consistently as...

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 un-played were as important as those included in a song. Some vacant spaces left in a song or a sparer air could cause a listener's own mind to fill in the gaps and...

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 gotcher new Urge Overkill tune, "Effigy." C'n you fuckin' believe it?! They got a new reckid comin' out this year! Their first in somethin' like fifteen! An' trust me – if the whole reckid is...

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 Romano's Workin' For The Music Man (released last year) and this year's Sleep Beneath The Willow are a perfect example of that; having taken a short break from his main squeeze, Attack In Black, the singer was inspired...

Inspiration. Dedication. Knowing what you are born to do. Skrillex’s second album (the first one was free) Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites was an encounter that showed these three things quite surely are still in existence on this planet. I went into the album knowing nothing about Sonny “Skrillex” Moore’s album. I was soon able to find out he was more Beiber than Will.i.Am. No, not from the perspective of the fever, but that both of these artists were born...

The excitement is really beginning to turn up to a fever pitch in the Sick Of Sarah camp. The band's new album, 2205, is out and generating some positive press, the shows the band has played most recently have been getting better received and have been really well-attended and it has all really boosted morale in the band; all five members of the Minneapolis-based, all-girl rock band are laughing regularly and freely and, according to singer Abisha Uhl and bassist...