On the cover and liner of II, the latest CD by Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, singer Dallas Taylor and the rest of his bandmates portray members of the infamous “Ma” Barker gang of the 1920s and 1930s, just as they did on the Southern metalcore band’s 2005 debut…
Jose Gonzalez’s sophomore full-length album, In Our Nature, sounds like a live concert held in a run-down room in an old clapboard hotel on the outskirts of a tiny plains town along a long-forgotten highway. The folk-bent singer-songwriter glides through a collection of songs with his acoustic guitar and voice,…
Chemistry is key when it comes to being in a band. For the guys in White Rabbits, it’s everything. Since moving to New York from Columbia, Missouri, two years ago, all six members have lived together in a loft that doubles as their rehearsal space. Kindred spirits, the guys all…
It’s fitting that McRad sounds like a skateboard trick. The act has been featured on several skateboard videos, and mastermind Chuck Treece had more than a few sponsorship deals as a pro. McRad’s new album, FDR, is the group’s first since 1987; the upcoming split with Denver’s Frontside Five will…
Purchasing a Rascal Flatts CD is like going to Cold Stone and ordering a vanilla waffle cone. There are so many flavors of country music that it seems a shame to settle for the blandest of all the varieties. Still Feels Good, the trio’s fifth studio album, is a boring…
The music on 2006’s Everything All the Time, Band of Horses’ breakthrough CD, could serve as the soundtrack for the originality-vs.-inspiration debate. There was nothing novel about the disc, with most ditties overtly recalling assorted expressionistic, guitar-driven predecessors. Yet the tunes were so passionately performed that they frequently made freshness…
I’m of two minds about Dualistics’ latest disc. I know — it’s an easy, stupid play on the group’s name, but it’s also the truth. On the one hand, there are some really strong songs and likable elements on the band’s Long Tail EP. On the other, it’s got some…
In 1984, Tony Hawk was doing a Frontside 5-0 to Lipslide Revert. Here we have skate punks Frontside Five and McRad reverting back to 1984, with the former inhabiting the thrash of D.R.I. and the latter remembering the Orwellian age through archival live tracks from the era. 50/50 Split (set…
Bat for Lashes, Fur and Gold (Parlaphone). Ethereal and haunting, Natasha Khan’s songwriting echoes the best moments of Roxy Music, Sinéad and Björk without spiraling into Switchblade Symphony melancholy. Fur’s signature song, “What’s a Girl to Do?” drowns in harpsichord and heavy downbeats before grooving into a pop number worthy…
One of the scummiest dives I ever drank in was the Mars Bar, just around the corner from the now-defunct CBGB on New York’s Lower East Side. It was a tiny, filthy, narrow joint with maybe a dozen stools at the bar and a motley crew of regulars, everyone from…
If rap was the new punk in the late ’80s when Public Enemy, NWA and Boogie Down productions came along to give it a real edge, then the latest incarnation of experimental electronic pop may just be the new indie rock. Thundercade (due at the Meadowlark on Friday, October 12),…
Vocal house doesn’t always have to be diva-tastic, and John Creamer and Stephane K. have done their best to prove that. After a series of remixes for everyone from Satoshi Tomiie to Sinéad O’Connor pushed the pair into the top strata of remixers, John Digweed recruited them to produce a…
Ken Andrews has worked hard to make certain he could never be called a Failure, even though that was the name of his best-known band. Formed in 1990, the group released three well-regarded albums, gigged extensively with Tool and other heavyweights, and even performed on Lollapalooza’s main stage prior to…
Upon moving to Denver from Detroit in the ’90s, Jim Paul joined the Christines. And when that atmospheric power-pop band moved to San Francisco — where, in true Denver fashion, it broke up shortly thereafter — Paul found himself drawn to New York City. He headed to Brooklyn, a place…
In a July interview with Pitchfork, Bill Callahan goes on at length about the reasons he decided to start performing under his own name rather than Smog, the handle he’d used throughout his recording career. He speaks about a “transformation of some sort, an upheaval” — one he decided to…
“Tonight I Have to Leave It,” the opening track on the Shout Out Louds’ latest release, Our Ill Wills, sounds like it could have been a B-side from the Cure’s 1985 album The Head on the Door. The buoyant tune bears a striking resemblance to Robert Smith and company’s “In…
The frenetic pace of hardcore, the combination of outrage and adrenaline, isn’t conducive to longevity. Fact is, most punkers mellow as they age. They take “real” jobs, get married, have kids — in other words, they become the people they hated when they were young and raging. This didn’t happen…
Okay, we’re not quite as quick as Annie Zaleski, whose early morning review of the new Radiohead recording In Rainbows can be found here. But below, find a couple of additional takes from two regular Backbeat Online contributors, Sean Cronin and yours truly. The rules were simple: Jot down your…
You know, Radiohead, I was just about to go to sleep when I checked my email one last time. And lo and behold, the download code for your new CD, In Rainbows, popped up in my inbox. *sigh* I didn’t need sleep anyway. Since the rest of the blogosphere is…
Gito Gito Hustler is as fun to say as the band is fun to watch. Check this slide show from their Sunday, October 7 show at Benders…
The Wheel, Gregory Alan Isakov, Porlolo and Bela Karoli Bela Karoli CD Release Party October 6, 2007 hi-dive Denver’s singer-songwriter scene currently enjoys more support and recognition than it has seen in many years, and Saturday night’s Bela Karoli CD release party was further proof. A sold-out show without a…
The Klaxons and Hot IQs Fox Theatre October 4, 2007 Better Than: The Klaxons turning out to be some fucking rave band. There’s something adventurous about going to a band’s show that you know nothing about. I guess adventurous for me qualifies as about anything that doesn’t involve TiVO Boggle…
