Add together a punk-rock attitude, electro-pop drums, guitars that span noise-rock to pop and song titles that seem to be completely comprised of inside jokes. What comes out of this strange concoction? Seems there could be about a million possibilities, most equaling pure crap but, luckily for us listeners, what The Death Set has spat forth out of that jumble is a one-in-a-million, fantastic little nugget entitled “Michel Poiccard.” To understand this album, something else has to first be understood....

A 2011 Stevie Nicks record is a frustrating prospect. Past glories like “Dreams,” “Gypsy” and “Edge of Seventeen” have inhabited a space between the fantasy of longing and the reality of loneliness cherished by fans for decades. Even the titles betray any subtlety Nicks wants to bring to her songwriting. She speaks for the high school sophomore who just got cut from the field hockey team or caught her best friend making out with her crush outside the mall; not...

So Beautiful or So What is the epitome of aging gracefully. The CD deals with the big questions which come with the passage of time – “where have I come from,” “where am I going,” “what does it all mean?” – without expressing bitterness, despair or smugness. Not only does Simon approach these questions with a level temperament, he demonstrates that gaining wisdom is far different from having the answers. The music which accompanies these ruminations is similarly graceful. A...

Upon starting this review, I realized that I had never seen a Roy Orbison record that wasn't some sort of compilation. For every other artist of Orbison's stature, I could quickly name a career defining record; Elvis' self-titled debut, Cash's At Folsom Prison, Dylan's Blonde On Blonde, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers' Damn The Torpedoes… but for Orbison I came up blank and realized that I generally knew very little about him – outside of the voice, the glasses and...

Looking for something light to listen to this morning? Something kind of upbeat, peppy, even? If that's the case, Soon The Birds is not for you. If, however, you find yourself hankering for some lonely country twang that you can drink whiskey to, then you just hit thirty-nine minutes of pay dirt with this album. The sixth album by Canadian alt-country singer Suzie Ungerleider, Soon The Birds is a work in slow progression; the album moves in a sleepy, heavy...

Be a working musician for as long as Iggy Pop has been (about forty-three years, if you didn't know) and keep a regular touring and release schedule for about the same amount of time, and it's likely that a pretty sizable bank of legally questionable releases will begin to accumulate. Some of those bootlegs have even been known to take on a celebrated status with the passage of time; some continue to reappear perennially because there was “this moment during...

Although the current incarnation of Sepultura is a far cry from the line-up that delivered some of thrash metal's finest moments with records such as Morbid Visions and Beneath the Remains, the band rolled into San Francisco last week and proved that they can still deliver the goods after all these years, without a doubt. Hitting the stage and ripping into "Arise,” Sepultura had the crowd worked up to a frenzy within a matter of seconds. Singer Derrick Green paced...

What's a musician to do when the limelight has faded completely? Granted, The Supersuckers were not the single greatest band to come rushing out of Seattle (by way of Arizona – in this band's case) in the 1990s, but they at least drew passing favor as a solid, journeyman band and their stellar work ethic has kept them going for years after the wheels fell off and the hype wore out. The Supersuckers have taken themselves as far as they...

As good as some stories might be, one must ask if they're really so good that even the post-scripts need to be recounted. That question deserves asking as one listens to the reissue of South Saturn Delta; originally released in 1997, SSD was the first compilation released by the Hendrix family after they put out First Rays Of The New Rising Sun (the album left unfinished by Jimi Hendrix at the time of his death in 1970). Fans found satisfaction...

When the Guantanamo School of Medicine (GitSOM) released The Audacity Of Hype in 2009, singer Jello Biafra accomplished what many assumed to be impossible: he managed to get the whole world (all of it – not just punk rockers) to begin looking at him as a musician again – not just as “that outspoken social and political critic/satirist Jello Biafra.” He fired all of his guns at once on Hype and the result was phenomenal, but even he would admit...