L.A. rockers the Bronx have never had to work too hard to get noticed. After just a few gigs, the quartet was beating back A&R reps because of its brutal tunes and punishing live shows, until Island Def Jam finally got through. The major-label story often ends in broken promises…
The latest installment of Johnny Cash’s epic American series, American V: A Hundred Highways, is the most poignant, cohesive album in the collection to date. Released two and a half years after the singer’s death, the introspective American V centers on spirituality and mortality. The opening cover of Larry Gatlin’s…
Busta Rhymes has recently embarked on a career makeover. He’s got a new label, a new haircut and a new body. But his latest album, The Big Bang, is reminiscent of the Busta of the ’90s: hungry, charismatic and crazy. The Dr. Dre-produced opening salvo, “Get You Some,” finds Rhymes…
Brightblack Morning Light bears a rather striking, but not crippling, resemblance to the orchestral psychedelia of Spiritualized. Both bands have an affinity for taking a foggy blues riff and wrapping it in street-smack, slow-mo gospel. Nathan Shineywater even shares Jason Spaceman’s ghostly tendency to sing in long, crawling exhales that…
These days, few performers are capable of crafting long-lasting careers — but producers like Tim “Timbaland” Mosley are another story. More than a decade after emerging from the wilds of Virginia, Timbaland is as in-demand as ever, and his work on the unexpectedly pleasurable Loose ensures that his cell phone…
Toil Like Devils, the Tarmints’ fourth effort, is the musical equivalent of a James Ellroy novel: brutal, uncompromising in its artistic vision, and an unflinchingly honest exploration of the shadowy places of the human psyche. Music seething with such a palpable, exhilarating anger could easily come from dwelling on self-destructive…
The notorious book called The Turner Diaries concerns a worldwide race war won by Caucasians. The decision by guitarist Eddie Turner, an African-American, to give his latest recording the same handle may be entirely coincidental; the title track’s lyrics don’t overtly reference the other Diaries. Whatever the case, the CD…
Naim Amor, Exsanguine (Amormusic). Naim Amor’s Exsanguine is a joyously atmospheric 1960s soundtrack to a dinner party in a Tucson barrio hosted by a Parisian couple in a Peter Sellers film. Comprising outtakes from Amor’s upcoming disc, Sanguine, Exsanguine is a stellar avant-pop collection imbued with savoir faire. — Rogers…
The Court and Spark was originally lumped in with the alt-country movement largely because of the San Franciscans’ choice of instrumentation: Pedal-steel and acoustic guitars played prominent roles on the combo’s 1999 debut, Ventura Whites, with banjos, dobros and mandolins making cameo appearances. Several albums and years later, most of…
Mike Andrews, who handles six-string duties for the Greyboy Allstars, is well established in both the visual and aural mediums. His prolific composing credits include scoring the 1988 cult flick Donnie Darko, as well as songwriting contributions to Miranda July’s film Me and You and Everyone We Know and the…
DJ Greyboy As DJ Greyboy, Andreas Stevens will be forever known as the veritable father of American acid jazz, a sound he was exposed to during a trip to London in the late ’80s. On his 1994 debut, Freestylin’, the Long Beach-based DJ fused the sounds of jazz with contemporary…
Back in Pearl Jam’s ’90s heyday, frontman Eddie Vedder eschewed the machinery of the music industry; he refused to make videos, conduct interviews or participate in commonplace publicity chores that are on the to-do lists of virtually every successful pop performer. But when the Jammers’ CDs stopped selling in big…
The most impressive thing about Cowboy Troy is what it took to make a black country rapper feasible. Hip-hop, the great assimilationist art, had to become the dominant musical form. A long line of experiments, from Charlie Daniels’s spoken-word songs to Timbaland’s hoedowns with Bubba Sparxxx, had to lay the…
Like a pissed-off, mistreated dog, Travis Reilly yelps, “This is how downward spirals start!” Then he growls, “This is a convoluted attempt to find some source of hope.” Later, he barks, “This is the best and worst things will ever get.” Reilly’s Long Island-based hardcore outfit, This Is Hell, seems…
The side project/obsession of KMFDM collaborator Raymond Watts, PIG has long been a hero in the underground industrial scene. The band’s mix of orchestral drenched beats, references to pork products and proclivity for poking fun at its peers has made it a favorite with the Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch…
Jamey Jasta makes an affable host for MTV2’s Headbangers Ball, sucking up to guest bands exactly the way viewers almost surely would in his place. On stage and on record with Hatebreed, he’s an equally perfect metalcore frontman. Indeed, he might have been grown in a vat for precisely that…
He’s baaaack! Except for sporadic performances with the hip-hop combo Dos Locos, Chris Dellinger has kept a low musical profile since his last outfit, Blister 66, became worm food. So what’s the dude been doing? Besides slowly destroying his liver (all the times I’ve run into the charismatic frontman over…
DJ Icey’s lengthy career is a testament to the staying power of electronic music. Icey has operated as Orlando’s breakbeat ambassador for nearly two decades and shows no sign of letting up. Never letting trends dictate his style or approach, the DJ has remained true to the breakbeats since day…
As recently as two or three years ago, when myspace.com couldn’t get a prom date and music blogs were still breastfeeding, if independent rock bands ever hoped to reach a national (or even regional) audience, they had to do it the old-fashioned way — by touring their asses off, earning…
When I was growing up, my folks would take me to a restaurant called the Royal Fork. It was a smorgasbord — or borgasmorg, as my dad called it — and definitely a godsend for a portly kid like yours truly. My parents just had to shell out a meager…
Gretchen Wilson’s famous red neck is fine, but the rest of her is a mess. In May, Wilson wiped out on an ATV, and during the next couple of shows, she recalls, “it was pretty difficult to breathe — not sing, but breathe. So I told my tour manager, ‘Why…
For record labels, video games and music are a match made in target-demographic heaven. EA Sports pushes major-label names in rock and hip-hop on the company’s yearly Madden and NBA updates, and Tony Hawk games sport underground punk and metal soundtracks. While those are somewhat appropriate, the latest music-in-games development…
