WHO: The Damned WHAT: Darkadelic WHY: Look, there’s no reason why seasoned veterans would still be putting out quality music this long into their career, but Darkadelic is catchy, sounds fresh, and made by a band who’s been around the block. There is no way a song like Beware of the Clown would work with anyone else but David Vanian on vocals. All the elements come together for a package that includes great songs, a great crisp sound, and an...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Volores’ Ages LP. It may come as a surprise, but there’s a reason that I elected to review Ace Of Wands’ newest LP and Ages by Volores back-to-back: the albums feel like the work of two bands who could easily share a stage or a tour together. Both bands’ sounds feature a bit of goth and alt-rock in their artistic/creative DNA but, where Ace Of Wands clearly features some classic rock in...

Star Trek Picard Season 3 Boy, am I excited to be reviewing Season 3 of Picard. Why? Because ever since it came out, I’ve had to read on social media about how it’s the greatest new iteration of Star Trek to date. It has glowing reviews. The old gang is back together! Now, any old Star Trek fan knows this is actually an indictment of #nutrek. Any close inspection of these praises reveals that the main argument is that they’ve...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Ace Of Wands’ Desiring LP. It’s hard to articulate how cool this is and how much this statement means but, from moment one of listening to Ace Of Wands’ new album, there is a direct artistic and creative line which connects Ace Of Wands to Heart. Of course, making comparisons between other artists and the work of Ann and Nancy Wilson is easy enough to do on a completely superficial level, but...

OSEESIntercepted Message There comes a point when we just have to draw a line in the sand and say, “This is too much!” I used to think John Dwyer’s Thee Oh Sees/Oh Sees/OSEES was such a prolific band that they’re not giving their audience enough time to properly digest their musical output. I have my favorites in the catalog, of course, like Floating Coffin and Castlemania, but that’s only because those were some of my first tastes of this wonderful...

Happy Thanksgiving! We were still so naïve in 2002. The Hives had released their second album Veni Vidi Vicious, and it was getting some mainstream attention. Not sure why. Maybe it was riding the coattails of that garage sound a la the Strokes/White Stripes/Yeah Yeah Yeahs that was all the rage at the time. As documented in Lizzy Goodman’s excellent book Meet me in the Bathroom, and the less excellent documentary movie that followed it a decade later, there was...

WHO: Screaming Females WHAT: Desire Pathway WHY: There aren’t any lifers out there doing it better than the Screamales. Their latest album took some growing on me, but the tried-and-true formula of juicy riffs and scorching solos eventually won. I think it might be a hot take to say that the vocals have been the weakest link in Screaming Females songs, but here the vocals are finally elevating and complimenting the songs. It’s a testament to what this band can...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Heavy Machinery EP by SLIP-ons. There aren’t many ways for a band to write songs which sound unmistakably similar to the work of another group without sounding derivative. The only way that it’s possible to walk such a narrow and treacherous line is to be completely ignorant of it; the band in question just has to bull their way in and boldly be themselves – and any similarity that the group...

I first saw Chelsea O’Donnell perform as Stress Dolls at the Bug Jar in Rochester, NY in April of 2019. That night, she performed solo; a woman alone on stage with an electric guitar. One song, “Noise,” particularly caught my attention – it started mellow but built to her screaming, “sometimes I just want to make noise!” How could I not love that? I started following her on Bandcamp and quickly found much more to love, especially her harder rocking...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Interference Patterns LP by Guest Directors. While the idea of well-known musicians reappearing in new bands with some new musical ideas isn’t particularly new at this point (OFF! revived Keith Morris’ stake in hardcore, Kathleen Hanna’s comeback with The Julie Ruin has been spectacular and Paul Leary’s appearance with The Melvins was excellent – even if it was frustratingly short-lived), Guest Directors have taken that idea in some unexpected directions on...