Ever spend a day looking at different things with a magnifying glass when you were a kid? It can utterly change your perception of the world; suddenly pristine surfaces get rough and abstract-looking, simple things appear very complex and complicated and a whole other world of possibilities opens up right before your eyes upon close examination. On its' ANTI– debut, All Alone In An Empty House, Lost In The Trees seems to have taken a magnifying glass to its' own...

It sounds too simple to say that something is “pretty” anymore. The beauty and the curse set upon those who speak English as a mother tongue is that it is very much a pack-rat language; there are a hundred and one synonyms for everything and the common misperception is that the more “expensive” a synonym the speaker uses, the more learned he is. That's not true though; some wors simply express a gift for gab and most often get broken...

Good evening alla you laborin' men and workin' girls, Y'know, there are moments when I feel bad for alla you folks? It's gotta be rough; there you are goin' ta work every day, slavin' for some boss who prolly doesn't appreciate anything other than the fact that you take the paper offa his desk. Godless bastid. He gets ta look good while you do alla leg work – where's the justice innat? How does anybody do that? How do you...

When the Scorpions announced that the "Get Your Sting and Blackout World Tour" was going to be their final tour ever and that they were calling it quits after almost forty years together, it was a no-brainer that I would be there. The band was a huge part of my Heavy Metal Arena Rock Show teenage years (dating back to 1983) and I just could not pass up the opportunity to see them live one last time. I have to...

There are few things quite so endearing to a dyed-in-the-wool indie boy's heart than an all-girl indie pop group making twee, surfy songs. Not to sound condescending, but they're just so cute! Such was the case when The Go-Gos attempted to be trashy but came up with Talk Show, when The Runaways spat out “You're Too Possessive,” when Joan Jett Covered “Crimson And Clover” on her own and Sleater-Kinney spent most of Dig Me Out trying to sound formulaic. In...

In order to understand why exactly Mad Caddies merit a “greatest hits” or “Best-Of” compilation (even the band itself admits in the liner notes of Consentual Selections that, in the strictest of terms, there aren't any “hits”), one has to recognize just how much love for the band has endured since it formed in 1995. Keep in mind that this is a group who has only issued a new record every two or three years, but has been kept on...

Former British Prime Minister and novelist Benjamin Disraeli once said, “Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.” The statement is a little ironic in his case, given some of the strained political relationships he created during his time in office, and it's surprisingly heated given that Disraeli wrote tepid romance novels when he wasn't sitting at the head of an imposing political body. Even so, the words and wisdom endure, and ma have been picked up by a...

Remember when things in and about punk rock were simple? The last time it was possible to say that was around 1996, and that was a wonderful time. That was a time when all things punk were simple to define and easy to qualify – either a band was punk (like Rancid), hardcore (hard and fast like Bad Religion or Agnostic Front), melodic hardcore (the bridge between 'punk' and 'hardcore' represented by bands like NoFX and The Descendents), or pop-punk...

When Primus announced that they'd be hitting the road this summer for their first full headlining tour in years, fans got excited but they couldn't have known what to expect. The band must have known that, if they were going to hit the road, they'd better bring something special after such a long time away or risk the wrath of even their most devout followers. It was a precarious position to be in – particularly with no definite announcement of...

When a band first breaks into the big time, everyone gets excited – including the band. It's a big deal; breaking out of the underground and scoring a bunch of additional exposure is a validation of a band's efforts to that point because, in effect, they've sold that record label they just signed with on their capabilities and they've sold listeners on their sound as being something new, unique and great. Of course it's exciting to get that kind of...