Ben Folds plays the ivory keys like an eleven-fingered man suckled on Elton John records. The former frontman and namesake of the Ben Folds Five has a clamant, albeit sometimes goofy, presence and an overwhelming talent that at times makes it hard to distinguish his solo work from his group…
Phish lovers and Phish haters will react differently to Colorado ’88 (available at www.jemprecords.com). The first group is sure to be thrilled by these three literally jam-packed CDs from the combo’s early period, while folks in the latter category are guaranteed to think the set is more masturbatory than a…
After years spent supplying noisy guitar hooks to Blur in a vain attempt to steer the band toward an aesthetic more akin to Pavement than Brit pop — releasing three reckless, barely listenable solo discs and distancing himself from his previous bandmates in an exaggerated tabloid manner — Graham Coxon…
Sound Bites Buju Banton, Too Bad (Gargamel Music). Whoever said that reggaeton replaced reggae dancehall needs to lend an ear to Buju’s latest. On tracks like “Try Offa Yuh” and “Go Slow,” Banton brings classic ragamuffin stylings. Although he falls off a bit on “Me & Oonu” by sampling Bob…
If Sage Francis and Atmosphere are supposed to be where independent hip-hop is going, then pH10 is way ahead of the game. The atypical duo mixes and remixes tight rhymes with an assertive electronic thump that makes punky techno accessible in a way that Atari Teenage Riot never did, and…
Astrophagus regularly employs two distinct styles. On some songs, the performers come across as rockers with a pronounced gloomy streak; on others, they seem like electro-adventurers. Yet Casualite never feels schizophrenic. The disc remains cohesive thanks to a singular vision that expresses itself in divergent fashion. Vocalist Jason Cain, who…
Longtime Denver Broncos fans know John Ralston as the team’s head coach during the early ’70s, when the squad was inching toward respectability. But those who show up early for Ben Lee and Rooney at the Fox will discover a very different Ralston — a performer who blends a fine…
Max Bemis writes shrill confessionals that are aptly backed by wussified pop-punk choruses. But that’s sort of the Say Anything shtick. The Los Angeles-based act formed in high school as an outlet for Bemis to pen sappy songs about girls. By the time he entered college, the group had a…
When acerbic alt-comic Brian Posehn name-checked Buffalo’s Every Time I Die (along with Maiden and Metallica) on his metalcore-mocking “Metal by Numbers,” it wasn’t entirely clear whether it was a trick or a treat. However, after an eight-year evolution — more metal and less melody with each successive release –…
In 2005, John Legend took home three Grammys for his work on Get Lifted, his outstanding debut. He’s hoping to replicate that success with his latest effort, Once Again. This time out, he’s crooning over more live instrumentation, and although the disc contains some hip-hop-inspired beats, as a whole, the…
Mike Kinsella made a name for himself with his work behind the kit for Cap’n Jazz, Joan of Arc and many other revered Chicago art-core projects. With his solo project, cheekily named Owen (perhaps to conceal his history and the connection to his indie-famous family of older brother Tim and…
Blame Canada — for arctic air fronts, socialized-health-care envy, hockey hair and a recent spate of rock acts who have taken the world by storm with jaw-dropping melodic originality. For those who have opened their ears to recent recorded imports from our northerly neighbor, it has become increasingly clear that…
When Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy spoke to Westword in 2004, he made it clear that mass popularity wasn’t his raison d’être. “I’d rather see a smaller audience, but an audience that is more attuned to the music, than a huge audience made up of moderately interested people,” he said. Such…
The music of Day Dissolved Dream evokes images of Denver’s night skies in November: Clouds drift across the face of the moon while the ambient orange glow of the city lights burns into the midnight blue, limning the clouds with an eerie fire. By turns measured and contemplative, insistent and…
A lot has changed since Luke Davis and his bandmates in Furious George and the Monster Groove last graced a Denver stage eight years ago. Back then, a Democrat was in the White House, the idea of paying more than two bucks per gallon of gas seemed preposterous, and everyone…
You can’t really trust too many people in the industry, unfortunately,” declares Hawthorne Heights drummer Eron Bucciarelli via phone from Scottsdale, Arizona, where the Heights are about to headline a packed house. “I think we’ve all sort of kept everybody at arm’s length when possible.” Bucciarelli’s cynicism undoubtedly stems from…
“Minger,” an insult defined in one online dictionary as “a physically undesirable, smelly or ugly person,” is only one of many English slang terms on Public Warning, Lady Sovereign’s Def Jam debut, that will be unfamiliar to most U.S. hip-hop heads. The native Londoner (birth name: Louise Harman) insists she…
“Weird Al” Yankovic — of “My Bologna” and “Hey Ricky” fame — has a new record. It’s called Straight Outta Lynwood (Zomba), and it’s completely beautiful. I always wrote off Weird Al as uncool, period. This was a complete misread. Totally beside the point. I didn’t understand until I realized…
Lyfe Jennings is living proof that convicts actually can be rehabilitated. At fifteen, the R&B artist from Toledo, Ohio, was ordered to serve between two and ten years for arson. With good behavior, Jennings could have been released in two, but his turbulent nature resulted in his serving the whole…
The thinking-man’s-metal tag that hangs on Isis seems bad for business, but guitarist/vocalist Aaron Turner and his comrades don’t appear to mind. After all, the jacket of their new CD includes the quote (“Nothing is true, everything is permitted”) that inspired the album’s title, as well as a quasi-footnote conceding…
Maybe the extended silence after K-Fed’s debut single, “Popozao,” was just to make Playing With Fire a perfectly timed punchline, the vapid playboy’s treatise on woeful tabloid stardom, blurted in grade-school rhyme. Federline’s need to prove his talents beyond impregnating starlets takes form in braggadocio verse about tearin’ ass around…
Without artifice or the slightest whiff of a scene, Vietnam bravely set up shop in the shadow of some great American artists: Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground. Vocalist Michael William bears Dylan’s influence to the tipping point, borrowing certain line cuts and a half-mumble/half-twang that almost, but not quite,…
