How unusual it is for a songwriter to jump from the beginning of a love affair or relationship to the spirit crushing failure and inevitable fallout of it with no notice afforded to or mention of the days of discovery and blissful moments in between. It seems like that would be an important detail wouldn't it? In order to best experience the bitter, shouldn't there be a sampling of the sweet – if only for contrast? Such a jump seems...

How unusual it is for a songwriter to jump from the beginning of a love affair or relationship to the spirit crushing failure and inevitable fallout of it with no notice afforded to or mention of the days of discovery and blissful moments in between. It seems like that would be an important detail wouldn't it? In order to best experience the bitter, shouldn't there be a sampling of the sweet – if only for contrast? Such a jump seems...

Every band hopes to have a successful career marked by great moments but, without a doubt, the first moment where the band is offered the chance to shine is one of the most exciting. Many onlookers would assume that moment comes when the band is asked to sign on the dotted line of a major label record contract but that's not true; a record contract is a legally binding document, it's business. That moment when a group is asked to...

Part of the deal with being a critic is you’re supposed to be somewhat impartial to the stuff you review. But I have to be honest: I was stoked to snatch the latest Vampire Weekend album, Contra, for review. Their first self-titled foray was an unexpected delight, a band out of the ether—and a friend’s generous use of “A Punk” in a video project. My only apprehension on writing this up was, would it meet expectations? Or, like oh so...

Given that heavy metal has remained an active genre now for over four decades, it's interesting to look at how the music has evolved over time. Compared with what came before it (Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and even Led Zeppelin are good examples), the music and guidelines for composing it have become ever wider as time as worn on and other sounds (punk, hardcore, pop, synth-pop, name it) have factored in. Simply said, metal has mutated significantly with the passage...

There’s something pretty special about seeing a band just as they approach their peak. You know, at a time before they become too refined and still have a little roughness. For Metallica, that time was when I saw them in 1986 on tour with Ozzy Osbourne, supporting the insanely good Master of Puppets album. It was during that period immediately before Cliff Burton, the band’s bassist, was killed in a tour bus accident while on the European leg of their...

Oh Dashboard, how many pre-teen break-ups did you nurse or nurture with your patent emo-shoegazer sound? With your grand total of five studio albums, half of which sported a sweet recorded-on-a-dime-store-tape deck sound, your mournful lyrics went after two moments consistently: the adrenaline and fear cocktail of working up the nerve to ask out the girl of your dreams, and the dismal blow of rejection right after. Does it keep you guys up at night? Knowing relationships destined to end...

Because it's been happening so much over the last few years, it has become reasonable to assume that it's easy for a band to reconvene or stage a comeback. How couldn't it be? The groundwork, name and mythos for the band has already been laid, it's just a matter of the band coming back and collecting on the dues they paid already right? Wrong. Unless the plan is to simply come back and capitalize on nostalgia, having a history can...

Since first appearing in 1991, Mountain Goats mastermind John Darnielle has discovered and crowned himself king of his own little corner of the subcultural landscape where form (in the context of recording media) has always taken a back seat to musical expression and elucidation. The singer has happily resided in that place and worked at building and detailing his own vision of what pop music should be and that construction process has led him from sitting on the floor of...

One of the best, most fantastic things that can happen in music is when an ambitious idea goes awry. Take Curtains For You for example – in listening to the band's debut, What A Lovely Surprise To Wake Up Here, it's pretty plain to hear that the band is composing to draw comparisons to either The Beatles or Beach Boys or a combination of the two with their densely layered and lush harmonies and classic pop structures, but the end...