Why the hell did ’70s superstar Todd Rundgren agree to lead a faux reunion of the Cars dubbed the New Cars? According to him, even some of his most fervent followers have been asking similar questions — although he admits, “I haven’t actually indulged myself in reviewing all of the…
Take a mental Polaroid of Murder by Death; what will you see? Pretty-boy metal-heads with black-painted fingernails? Starving rockers with welts under their eyes? You just may be surprised by what develops: namely, three guys in button-up shirts and a girl armed with a cello. The Bloomington, Indiana, quartet composes…
When a reviewer cites a band’s “maturity,” it frequently means the group has exchanged spontaneity and freshness for calculation and predictability. That’s certainly the case with the Peppers, whose latest has generated raves from easily pleased scribes even though it’s basically two discs’ worth of been-there-done-that-better-in-the-past. Stadium features loads o’…
Considering that it’s been fifteen years since his last record of consequence, Paul Simon is certainly due for a comeback. With Brian Eno on the knobs and the world at war — the inspiration for Simon’s most acute writing — the venerable songwriter seems poised to offer this generation’s “Sounds…
If you thought that the Stills were initially lumped into the same scene as Interpol and the Walkmen because of timing rather than musical similarities, the quintet cements that notion on Without Feathers. More Radiohead than Rapture, Feathers finds the Montreal band more interested in creating expansive soundscapes than in…
They say rock is dead — but so is Tupac, and that hasn’t stopped him from continuing to chart on Billboard. On occasion, yes, rock’s inappropriate cousin shows up and pisses all over the genre (let’s call him Scott Stapp). But face it: Every family has a douchebag. Cut the…
On 5 Sparrows for 2 Cents — their second album and debut for the newly relaunched Rawkus Records imprint — the Procussions have pretty much moved on from their golden age of hip-hop sound. This time out, Stro’s production is much more progressive, rhythmic and melodic, though the influence of…
Last month in this space, Zachary “Status” Young was lauded for the inventive production heard on his new CD, Things to Do in Denver When You’re Def…The same compliment is applicable to Thru My Eyez, which Status produced and helped mix. But equal praise should be offered to Azma Holiday,…
Anathallo, Floating World (Nettwerk). Floating World, the latest by Michigan septet Anathallo, may be the rarest of all musical rarities — a truly unique album. Steeped in disenchanted Japanese fables, World inhabits the seemingly non-existent soundscape between worldbeat, chamber pop and choral rock. The result is orchestrated musical mayhem that…
It’s been seven years since Ice Cube released a solo album and even longer since he’s been on tour by himself. But with his Westside Connection lying in the hip-hop graveyard, his hunger to get back on the mike was fueled, and Cube took off an entire year from Hollywood…
Summer’s upon us, finals are over, school is out. It’s bike weather and bare ankles as far as the eye can see. Swim trunks and park picnics, making trouble like teenagers in haste — it all makes for a motion-picture soundtrack, and Fifth Hour Hero is the feel-good hit of…
Charlie Musselwhite’s rural innocence and Anglo complexion made him an anomaly when he left Memphis at eighteen to educate himself at the foot of Chicago blues legends Junior Wells, James Cotton, Big Walter “Shakey” Horton and Little Walter. But within four years, the harp-blowing prodigy had not only befriended and…
Few of the original punk-rockers remain as cantankerous and contrary as they were during their initial infamy. But Mark E. Smith, who’s been wailing for the Fall since the group’s birth in 1977-era Manchester, England, isn’t about to go soft. Take Fall Heads Roll, issued by Narnack Records last October…
God Forbid musters some of the most anthemic riffs and choruses in metalcore, injecting its music with megadoses of classic thrash without ever succumbing to necrophiliac retro impulses. The act’s most recent album, IV: Constitution of Treason, is nearly operatic at times. One of the best metal discs of 2005,…
While Blur was busy parading around the globe to great acclaim in the ’90s, showing off the Brit-pop crown and racking up tabloid headlines, the Charlatans UK were quietly amassing a stable of number-one hits and headlining gigs. Fast-forward to 2006, and it’s more of the same. Although the elder…
At youngliars.blogspot.com, the most recent post reads, “Earth to People: Love is the ultimate truth at the heart of existence. Treat each other with care. To be cynical is no longer useful and wildly irresponsible. Please, be here now.” This is the professed Internet axiom of blogger DAS, who, presumably,…
Leon Russell is a living link to several different musical eras. As a teenager, he gigged with the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis in his fireballing prime before moving to Los Angeles and becoming a studio regular on Phil Spector productions such as Ike and Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain…
So I say to my editor, “How about this Pretty Thigh band?” He turns, looks down at me (because I’m shorter) and, blunt like a cigar, the dude replies, “I’m hip,” and “I like them.” And it’s true. He is hip. But even more, Pretty Thigh is a band to…
New-school drum-and-bass dons Nicolas Ruoff and Florian Harres, known collectively as Phace, are taking over the scene. Close friends since their school days in southwest Germany, the two cut their teeth on the massive sounds of U.K. D&B, and it wasn’t long before their passion for the style led them…
Basically,” says bassist Curtis Durham, “we’re just four guys who were sick of all the crap from our other bands and got together.” Durham’s joking, but from the sound of it, the members of this local pop-rock outfit complement each other, and together they communicate better than any other group…
Tool sucks live — if you’re a casual concert-goer expecting all the trappings of a classic rock show that is — because a Tool performance has no pyro, no special effects, no stunning light show or outrageous antics. Last Wednesday night, I was one of more than 2,000 lucky bastards…
The formula is simple: Add Sabbath to Zeppelin and multiply by Hendrix. The result — as every snooty writer from Vice to NME to Rolling Stone has concluded — is Wolfmother, an Australian band three decades too late. But really, the math doesn’t add up. Wolfmother is much too cheery…
