As Let's Just Stay Here spins, listeners find themselves being treated to the results of the perfect kind of marriage – the sort that starts with something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. It's a beautiful affair, but what makes it so? What's old: a faded, glorious landscape with lonesome, reverb-touched and dust-swept guitars and Carolyn Mark's own trad country and breathless vocalese. What's new: the timing and delivery of the songs themselves as well as their environment;...

For six records, Devendra Banhart has plumbed the underground and built an impressive reputation for himself with his soul/folk strains but – wouldn't you know? – at the same time he signs to a major label (from XL Recordings to Warner Brothers) he's struck by the inspiration necessary to produce the definitive statement of his “New Weird American” music? From the opening bump of “Can't Help But Smiling,” Banhart finds and happily shows off his new, refined and refreshed blend...

There are some features to a woman that, on sight or upon hearing their voices, instantly conjure images, feelings and sequences that intermingle both pictures and emotions in the viewer/listener's mind's eye. Bette Davis had some of the saddest eyes in Hollywood; she was able to make people looking at her on the screen feel tremendous pathos and also anger at the one who hurt her and, as one watches movies like Jezebel, The Man Who Came To Dinner and...

Britney Spears needs no introduction. Since first appearing on Top 40 airwaves in 1999, she has captured a global audience and interest in every single movement she makes and every controversial event – be it the “is-she-isn't-she a virgin” debacle that raged virtually until she had a child of the “did she slip Madonna the tongue?” question spawned by the duo's performance on the VMAs years ago (don't forget – Cristina Aguilera was there too!), the nonsense with her mother...

It takes a unique band to be of the mental disposition that, as much as they might like it, they can't help but believe that slogan they see on T-shirts, “Punk is dead.” It doesn't happen to every group of course, and even those that do reach that bitter conclusion do so after years of hard work. Social Code are over-achievers in that regard; it only took them three albums to hit that point like a brick wall. So what...

I saw Saviours for the first time at a dirty little rock club in the South Side of Chicago. I had a feeling I was in for something unique when lead singer Austin Barber's first words to the crowd was "Lets get weird!" Let's do it, I thought. After seeing this band live, listening through iPod headphones is like switching from crystal meth to decaf coffee. Accelerated Living, Saviours' third full length release, picks right up where their last album,...

Ever since I heard them, The Avett Brothers have held a special place in my heart. They’re one of those bands that came at the right time and delivered the right content. And as anyone who has heard  their album, Emotionalism, will tell you, the Avetts have the ability to move you, even when you’re stubbornly in place. A band that can pull this off successfully and suck you into their world on an album has their work cut out...

There's a misperception among music fans that the material a player is most commonly associated with is also the stuff that sums up who he/she is. It's a reasonable enough assumption to make; in every other line of work, if you sign your name to something, you're supporting the decisions made and are responsible for it right? That's a very two-dimensional way of looking at it though. Members of the arts community in general (but musicians in particular) work at...

Since the late 1980s, with the emergence of every new pocket of alt-rock (or 'indie rock,' or 'college rock' – pick your favorite title) bands that come together and get noticed for their sound as a community, there are always a few bands that get lumped into the mix, but don't exactly fit in. In Seattle, for example, while Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains were drawing a lot of spotlight to their scene, The Factbacks, Melvins and...

Listening back, it's funny and strange to hear these lost sessions by Snoop Dogg – if only in observation the distance between them and the position that the emcee occupies now. Recorded during his stretch on Death Row Records, this album puts into relief how much times have changed for the emcee in the sixteen years since they were recorded. Dogg says it best himself on his “Soldier Story” introduction  to the album as he recounts the first very quick...