On “Driftin’ Back,” the opening number on Psychedelic Pill, Neil Young and Crazy Horse don’t fuck around. They get right down to business. The business of, well, fucking around. For twenty-seven minutes. And that should tell you whether you want this album. If “Heart of Gold” is your favorite Neil Young song, you should probably steer clear, but if you think “Down by the River” just isn’t long enough, then, ladies and gentlemen, you're going to have a brand new...
Once upon a time there was a little album called The Who Live at Leeds. Merely six songs long, that was still enough for it to be rated one of the best live albums ever. If not THE best, depending on the circle with which you ran. Those six songs captured The Who at the absolute peak of their power. It was high energy and insane soloing all the way through. That was back in the days of vinyl. Then...
Ever heard a record and known exactly where it's coming from, but you find that you're still surprised by the result because it ends up delivering something a little different from what you expected? The experience of listening to Rapido's debut album, Pistols At Dawn, is like that; even though the band is fleshing out an alt-country muse pretty clearly through the eight tracks which comprise their debut, the form which becomes apparent sounds exactly nothing like that of any...
Now sixteen years after the last time Soundgarden entered the recording studio to make a new LP, there had to have been a moment when everyone needed to try and actively remember how they used to work together. How could there not have been? When Soundgarden folded up in 1997, singer Chris Cornell was beginning to indulge too much in the excesses that would dog him through most of his solo career, and the rest of the band was really...
No matter what may have happened before the final stroke was delivered – no matter how close to the brink of just ripping each other's lungs out the individual members might have been in the twilight of their career – every band hope to deliver one last great and satisfying coup de grace for fans to remember them by when they decide to pack it in. It's always preferable to go out with a bang over a whimper, and Anthology...
'Ey youse,I know whatcha thinkin', yer thinkin', “Well it's about time Donnie, we're startin' ta get the shakes 'ere! Whatcha got?” What can I say? Whenna boss is away (fi' dollar Billy went south fer a couple o' weeks), I see no reason ta get ta work! He's back though, so I am too; wit' a great big bag o' SWAG ta boot! Some of it is even good an' addictive, junky! The mos' addictive tunes're stuff likethe Noah Hyde...
It's rare to catch a show at the Metro in Chicago and have room to breathe and take it all in. Which made it all the more surprising when openers The Right Now took the stage to no more then 40 people. The Chicago band, led by the boisterous Stefanie Berecz, took a few songs to get warmed up, but it was fun to watch them win the crowd over. By the end of the set, the crowd swelled as...
Remember a couple of months ago, when Dave Grohl announced that Foo Fighters were going to go to sleep for a little while but left no further details? Some fans got nervous; Grohl has proven to be a bit of a workaholic over the last fifteen years, lending his talents to dozens of albums, so the announcement that the singer/drummer/renaissance man was in the wind got fans wondering and worrying. Fans shouldn't have worried in the slightest. Yes it's true...
I know it’s been a while since I’ve written one of these, but hopefully things are about to change. And by that I don’t think things will change at all. Witness the second edition of the Vinyl Vlog where we review both the vinyl package and the music within the grooves of Cat Power's Sun – one of this year’s hottest* records. Cat Power’s new album Sun is a great comeback for the blog because it does everything a Vinyl...
Cat Power is weird, don’t you think? First of all, her music is hard to describe (Aggro-easy-listening? Minimalist-throaty-pop? Girl-band?). Second, there’s a bit of a mystery surrounding Chan Marshall a.k.a. Cat Power. Like, what’s the deal with all those cover albums she releases? Why has she zeroed in on felines as the ideal source of energy? And who exactly is she kidding when she says that her astrological sign has any effect whatsoever on how/when her new album got recorded....