So you’ve got a couple of rock critics (okay, most of them) saying you sound like the Velvet Underground. Then you, eager listener, are sitting at your local hipster-inhabited coffee house that lets you smoke inside after 10pm (no names will be named for the sake of the establishment), and the Domino label-adoring barista puts on the new Clinic album, Visitations. Is it, is it Suicide? Is it some warped up bastardized version of shoegaze? You know what it is...

Interviews can be tricky. Some artists dread the whole press "thing" and cough up information about as willingly as a potential third-strike suspect under the bright lights. Others babble on incessantly, leaving interviewers with hours of tape and mere seconds of usable content. Then there are the interviewees that make a writer's job the easiest thing in the world. Explosions in the Sky drummer Chris Hrasky was so thoughtful and well spoken when interviewed about the release of the band’s...

ARTIST: Explosions In The Sky DATE: 02-02-07 WRITER: Aaron Autrand PHOTO: Dianne Jones   Interviews can be tricky. Some artists dread the whole press “thing” and cough up information about as willingly as a potential third-strike suspect under the bright lights. Others babble on incessantly, leaving interviewers with hours of tape and mere seconds of usable content. Then there are the interviewees that make a writer’s job the easiest thing in the world. Explosions in the Sky drummer Chris Hrasky...

THE SEA AND CAKE'S EVERYBODY SET FOR MAY RELEASE The Sea and Cake are back! Thrill Jockey is proud to release Everybody, the band's seventh album and first full-length release in over four years. The record, available nationwide on May 8, marks the latest, perhaps greatest, chapter in a career that has become a benchmark for indie artists everywhere. Everybody finds The Sea and Cake continuing to perfect their singular brand of dreamlike pop music that sounds delicately handcrafted, yet...

Sweden's IN FLAMES was honored with the Swedish "Grammis" award in the "Best Hard Rock" category during a ceremony that was held Tuesday night (January 30) at Hovet in Stockholm. The award marks is the third Swedish Grammy the band has received in their storied history In accepting the award, IN FLAMES frontman Anders Fridén asked the audience to get up on their feet. "This is the third time IN FLAMES have won a Grammy and it feels extremely...

When Jeff Buckley passed away, I felt an intense sadness usually reserved for family members or other close loved ones. His music suddenly transmogrified from haunting love songs or existential queries into dark opuses and reminders of something that seemed unfinished. The ballads of a life lost too young. Since his passing, I find it interesting how some point out that death made Jeff more famous, as if it that’s his fault. However, it’s not really the issue nor should...

Sometimes a band has to contend with fatigue or sickness or even technical difficulties during a show that might contribute to a particular performance. Of Montreal’s lead singer/guitarist and androgyny aficionado, Kevin Barnes, apologized for a slow start, saying, “I took too much last night and sometimes you have to balance it out,” as well as admitting they were “crowd surfing at a Shiny Toy Guns show at Sundance” the night before. Being the first night of a grueling 49-date...

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club will release their fourth album, Baby 81, on May 1st with RCA Records. With their 2005 critically acclaimed album, Howl, BRMC proved their stalwart musicianship with their own brand of stripped down Americana and are now deftly transitioning back towards the color-saturated wash of guitars that made fans fall for the band in the first place. Baby 81, named after an infant admitted to the hospital in the wake of 2004’s tsunami who was claimed by...

Well, it was family affair night at the Silverlake Lounge when “It” band for 2007, Cold War Kids, teamed up with Matt Death and the New Intellectuals. Not only did the opening band consist of Cold War Kids’ producer and album photographer, Matt Death, but also David Maust, brother of Cold War Kids’ Matt Maust. Had they thrown in some barbecued chicken and a backyard, it would have felt like a down-home family reunion, because it sure as hell sounded...

Rare And Out-Of-Print Recordings Available Via Download Anthology Recordings has announced their first four digital only releases of 2007, which will be available for download on January 17 – Dom’s “Edge Of Time” (Ultimate meditative Psych from Germany circa 1970), Patrick Gleeson’s “Rainbow Delta” (Analog Synth pioneer), Abner Jay (The last great Southern black minstrel show) and Merrell Fankhauser (gently flowing, peaceful folk). All releases can be accessed at www.anthologyrecordings.com and...