In a kind-bud-cured Alabama drawl, Nathan “Nabob” Shineywater talks about music like a ’60s counterculturalist: part social critic and part shaman. The self-titled second release from Brightblack Morning Light, the project he helms with childhood friend Rachael “Rabob” Hughes, evokes the deep Southern gospel of their religious upbringing and blends…
Tom Petty is perpetually underrated. He debuted too late in pop music’s historical continuum to seem deserving of full classic-rocker status (although he’s certainly earned it by now) and came across like an apprentice rather than a peer when collaborating with Bob Dylan et al. (a result of his modesty,…
What the Chemical Brothers tried to do with stadium-beat overkill, MSTRKRFT (pronounced “Master Kraft”) does by proving that anorexically constructed techno can rock out with its digi-funk cock out. Celebrated remixers Al-P and Jesse F. Keeler (Death From Above) create jagged, over-caffeinated hybrids of house, disco and funk in which…
Although Obie Trice now carries a bullet in his skull (from a violent encounter last New Year’s Eve), the bragging rights at Shady still belong to 50 Cent and his nine gunshot wounds. Unlike the larger-than-life 50, though, Obie sounds genuinely scarred by his experiences: Most of his sophomore album…
Originally a four-track recording project between guitarist Matt Oliver and bassist Bill Baird, Austin’s Sound Team now rolls six deep. The additional membership gives the band a great deal of latitude with regard to sound and texture. Surprisingly, with a half-dozen instruments vying for space, there’s not a wasted or…
The latest from the Hamsters is everything a fan might expect from one of Colorado’s most gloriously twisted exports: a two-disc package divided between unconventional studio offerings and a live set that underscores the band’s ambition and eccentricities. The initial pair of cuts on Execution set the stage for the…
Rush Ya Collaboration albums are generally hit or miss. Their success hinges on how well the artists are able to jell with each other. Unfortunately for local MC Ancient Mith and German producer XNDL, the crew behind Rush Ya, A Modern Day McCarthy reveals a noticeable lack of chemistry; the…
Carter Falco, If It Ain’t One Thing (CMH). Carter Falco’s disc kicks off with a song called “Country Music,” but he doesn’t mean the diluted stuff that passes for the real thing so often these days. He’s an ass-kicker with an outlaw streak, and on Thing, he gets assists from…
Compared with its contemporaries in 2001, Cannibal Ox sounded like brothers from another planet. The group’s debut, The Cold Vein, released prior to the World Trade Center attacks, brilliantly depicted the stress of New York City life. El-P’s claustrophobic beats gave off a paranoiac vibe and provided the perfect backdrop…
Just because poet Sylvia Plath committed suicide and was portrayed by pop-star spouse Gywneth Paltrow in a Hollywood biopic doesn’t mean she’s especially rock-and-roll. Nevertheless, the four Mancunians at the heart of Nine Black Alps, who are opening for Social Distortion and the Supersuckers, lifted their band’s name from a…
While not quite deserving of a tickertape parade, this year does have the distinction of marking the twentieth anniversary of two of glam rock’s most memorable albums: Poison’s Look What the Cat Dragged In and Cinderella’s Night Songs, both of which defined an era of music that was all about…
In 1998, when Canibus was in the midst of a battle with LL Cool J and spit the lines “Mad at me cause I kick that shit real niggas feel/While 99% of your fans wear high heels,” his scathing assessment wasn’t that far off the mark. With the exception of…
If you don’t recognize the name Alexi Murdoch, chances are you’ve heard his voice: a soothing lilt of Scottish-bred earthiness that shows up in the darnedest places. Take that wildly popular song “Orange Sky.” After being featured in films as dissimilar as Garden State and Ladder 49, Murdoch’s achey-broguey little…
The Raconteurs have the best website ever. Modeled in the style of the green-screen days of bulky supercomputers, the site (www.theraconteurs.com) is 2-bit awesome, with text-heavy simplicity that ditches mouse controls in favor of keyboard-only commands. Nixing the Flash and the glitz, the Raconteurs do it old-school, which seems to…
Once upon a time, music journo Mikal Gilmore declared that Singles Going Steady, the Buzzcocks’ 1979 landmark, “boasted as many pithy hooks and punchy backbeats as Elton John managed in a decade.” This fact helps explain why the group, appearing locally alongside the Adored and the Strays, remains unexpectedly credible…
“And life is like a song,” sings Etta James on “At Last,” one of her most enduring numbers. Although the track is centered around the title refrain, this particular lyric stands out as one that mirrors James’s life, which has been riddled with pain, bolstered by hope and built upon…
What’s not to love about DeVotchKa? To hear its songs even once is to fall hopelessly, head over heels in love. With what, you ask? Anything and anyone within earshot, as the music makes the most mundane things seem worthy of romanticizing. Even when the band is covering other people’s…
If electronic music has been around long enough to have dinosaurs, then Evil Eddie Richards could be considered one. Richards (due at Shelter this Saturday, July 15) was among the first DJs to break house music in the U.K. during the ’80s burgeoning rave scene. The original warehouse parties where…
Who would have imagined that a poke in the eye during a pickup basketball game would have such a profound effect on Doug Martsch’s life and his music career? The Built to Spill frontman didn’t think much of it when he sustained the injury earlier this year. An eventual trip…
King Rat has been an ongoing concern for Luke Schmaltz for the better part of eleven years. During this time, despite numerous personnel shifts, he’s remained unapologetically faithful to a gritty, no-frills gutter-punk approach that pays homage to booze and broads while evoking a sound made famous by Mike Ness…
Being the progeny of famous musicians isn’t always a guaranteed ticket to stardom. For every Rufus Wainwright or Jakob Dylan, there’s an Adam Cohen, whose band, Low Millions, didn’t quite produce the same genius lyrics that dad Leonard did. Or there’s Sean Lennon and half-brother Julian, who have yet to…
Julie Christmas, the alternately angelic and aggressive singer for the artfully noisy space-sludge outfit Made Out of Babies, rated a full-page photo in Revolver’s March 2006 “Hottest Chicks in Metal” issue. Christmas says that this accolade prompted guys she grew up with in Brooklyn to ask, “Who did ya get…
