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...

The title is, no surprise, ironic. Not that the songs on this record could never be popular, or sell; there is no attempt to write a blatant hook, but a number of the songs do end up being catchy. Nonetheless, it is obvious that they were not written with either goal in mind. They were, instead, written for that noblest of goals, to express the songwriter's feelings. A more accurate title (I almost said "better,” but, as a title, the...

The four years that have lapsed since Avril Lavigne released The Best Damn Thing and smashed the world over the head with another kiddie pop anthem (“Girlfriend”) have been an incredibly turbulent time for the singer. In 1460 days, Lavigne has been married, broken into Hollywood, been divorced, toured the world on the strength of The Best Damn Thing, founded a clothing line and a line of fragrances, started work on a new album a couple of times and been...

A recent article on FutureHit.DNA declared rock music to be, finally, dead. It wasn't a theoretical or aesthetic argument, but one based on sales figures and chart positions. It claims that not only does rock no longer dominate the charts (it hasn't done that in some time), but it barely exists there at this point. Granted, the article focused more on songs than albums, but the decline in sales that it outlined held true across the board. While some may...