When some bands get huge, it’s really fun and gratifying to watch because, while everyone that heard them before knew they were good, the chances of them breaking out and making a massive impression seemed so far removed that it’s actually a surprise when it happens and even more surprising when it doesn’t seem to phase the band or slow them down. Los Campesinos! is a great example of this; the Cardiff, Wales-based band came literally from nowhere with a...
I won’t lie, I’m a sucker for a super group. It’s like the first Olympic “dream team” or like when the Traveling Wilburys got all those old dudes together for a few hits. This time it’s Down, which has a list of ex-bands that range from Pantera to Corrosion of Conformity and Crowbar, and unlike the aforementioned super groups, they rocked the fucking house. As the House of Blues began to fill up, it was nice to see fans that...
If you’ve ever been to a karaoke bar (I have, don’t judge me) and flipped through one of the catalogs of music available to sing, you may have noticed some recurring themes – you can do country songs of ay vintage, all manner of pop from Fifties girl groups to Meatloaf to Suzanne Vega (beware “Uncle Tom’s Diner” by the way – it’s torturous), a galaxy of show tunes and even alt-rock if Cake, Ugly Kid Joe or Creed is...
So does the swindle continue? You know you’re asking. Thirty years after the release of the Sex Pistols’ one and only full-length album, the band – with all four of its original members – boarded the stage at Brixton Academy in front of a capacity crowd. Again? Maybe – what difference does it make? Ten years after the Filthy Lucre tour that featured the same set list (how could it not? The band only has about fifteen original songs plus...
For a genre that has always professed a higher-than-average intelligence quotient among its fan base, for whatever reason, documents (books, magazines and so on) and documentary films extolling the virtues and historical merit of punk rock always seem to pander to the lowest intellectual common denominator. The House Of The Rising Punk? What a lousy title; it’s trite, situationist at best, cheesy and requires no thought at all. If the film is going to talk about the venue that started...
It may not seem like it (since he's guested on everyone's album and cranked out a few side projects) but Antony and the Johnsons haven't put out a record since 2005's I Am a Bird Now. Luckily, for those of us who like slightly creepy, hauntingly beautiful voices, January 20th, 2009 is more than just the day that politics in America take a turn for the better. See, it's also when Herr Antony and Secretly Canadian will release The Crying...
Some bands have a gift for painting exquisite images and drawing listeners in to feel the music in their guts. They draw together incisive lyrical content that pays special attention to detail with complimentary textural sounds that flesh out and bolster the subjects broached and thus present vivid, fully formed and marvelously articulated pictures. Helms Alee is such a band but, unlike others including Pavement, The Notwist or even Smashing Pumpkins, Helms Alee makes no attempt to enrich their music...
The words “genre defying” are a bit overused, and constitute a phrase that really doesn’t make sense. I’d go more in depth with that opinion, but that would just add up to a bunch of sentences of me trying to explain some idiotic statement. And, it’d make me look like a self-righteous jackass who talks about himself for the entire first paragraph of an album review. Oh, um, I’ll just start talking about XX Teens and their debut LP, Welcome...
Throwback-rockers The Black Keys just brought sunshine to a rainy day by announcing the release of The Black Keys Live at the Crystal Ballroom. The disc not only will showcase one of the dopest live acts today, but as a bonus, the disc will include 17 live songs, original music videos for “Your Touch,” “Just Got To Be” and “Strange Times,” as well as behind-the-scenes footage of the making of their chart-topper Attack & Release. The DVD was produced and...
To paraphrase a Chinese proverb, change is growth, growth is life and those that refuse to accept change run the very real risk of being trampled by the new things coming down the line behind them. Ironically, few genres in the pop canon view change with more distaste than punk rock; once a band appears and makes an impact with a particular sound, the conventional wisdom among fans of the genre is that the band in question has no reason...