On its debut, Last of the Cellophane, Redline Defiance sounds like Incubus — a lot like Incubus. Nonetheless, anything the disc lacks in originality, it compensates for with impeccable production: Distinct separation between each instrument and colossal-sounding drum and guitar tones augment vocalist Mike Kellogg’s cunning melodic sensibility. At times,…
Public Enemy, Power to the People and the Beats: Public Enemy’s Greatest Hits (Def Jam). Not even bad reality TV can pull the punch of prime Public Enemy. Finally, after two criminally lackluster best-of packages, someone got it right. But even if this disc contained nothing more than outtakes from…
Devotees of bass guitar and roots music will no doubt rejoice when Oteil Burbridge lands on Colorado soil for a string of performances beginning in Boulder and wrapping up in Aspen. Burbridge made his name with the Aquarium Rescue Unit in the early ’90s before moving on to the Allman…
This Tulsa, Oklahoma, three-piece brims with contradictions. First off, “Jacob Fred” doesn’t exist; the name is a pseudonym invented by pianist Brian Haas, who shares membership in the group with drummer Jason Smart and ultra-melodic bassist Reed Mathis. Second, “Jazz Odyssey” is a reference to a Derek Smalls song that…
Chicken-fried metal gets a fresh coat of grease from the four fiery West Texans in SuperHeavyGoatAss. These Lubbock-bred headbangers straddle the barbed wire between ZZ Top’s shit-kicking boogie and the stoner sludge of Black Sabbath. Ear-splitting, unaffected riff rock with ominous bass tones patch together extended meditations on Lone Star…
Einstein postulated that mass is equivalent to energy, and the Mass proves it. Hailing from Oakland, California, the band was formed in 2002 by members of lauded Bay Area acts From Monument to Masses and Totimoshi. Within a year, the Mass’s debut disc, City of Dis, shook the heavens. A…
Like a remedy to the mopier aspects of college radio, Buffalo’s Bloody Hollies bring back some of the speed and urgency otherwise sacrificed for dull introspection from journal-keepers in cardigans. Loud, raw, stripped-down punk, rockabilly and garage blues are the calling cards for this trio of former art school students…
Oof, tough times for nü-metal these days, huh? Skinny, Schmotz, Pig Benis and the rest of the Cleveland octet Mushroomhead may be feeling a bit like Donnie, Joey, Jordan, Danny and Jon circa 1992, but that just won’t stop these masked, malevolent misfits, these punk-thrash provocateurs, from soldiering onward for…
Tori Amos perfected her ability to combine creative risks with emotional introspection on early discs such as 1996’s Boys for Pele, which struck a welcome balance between modern flash and old-fashioned sentimentality. But with her more recent, experimental albums, listeners felt curiously removed from the flame-haired faerie queen, largely because…
Quick: What’s the name of John Mellencamp’s latest album? Uh-huh. That’s what we thought you’d say. Actually, though, we’re looking for the title of his latest disc, not the last Mellencamp record you heard. Still drawing a blank? Don’t worry. We haven’t listened to old Johnny boy since he shaved…
The godfather of grunge? According to artist and former Seattle scenester Art Chantry, that crown should sit upon the unlikely head of Kurdt Vanderhoof, guitarist of Metal Church. After the demise of the Lewd, Vanderhoof’s semi-legendary Seattle punk band, he took a young King Buzzo of the Melvins under his…
Things have recently come full circle for Voices Underwater. After playing South by Southwest and putting out an acclaimed self-titled album in 2003, the Denver outfit added two new members: guitarist Ian O’Dougherty of Uphollow and drummer Larry Joireman. Both left, though, after completing a new disc, Trip the Light…
Though not exactly a hotbed of musical talent, Israel can lay claim to the distinction of producing one of the most critically acclaimed trance and psy-trance acts around today. Amit Duvdevani and Erez Aizen, who make up Infected Mushroom, have been producing trance music in one form or another since…
You don’t have to be serious and emo to make a record,” insists Tom “Alice” Gilbert, drummer for the Maybellines. “People are happy in the world. And we’re generally four really happy people.” For the past seven years, the Maybellines have done more to push their agenda of musical Pollyannaism…
Scott Stevens insists that he’s no longer bothered about being overlooked in his home town. But there’s an acerbic undertone to his words that reveals trace amounts of bitterness. “We haven’t really had too much success in Denver,” says the Exies frontman, who’s on the phone in Maryland during a…
During its brief existence, Black Black Ocean was many things to many people. The soundtrack to a night of shaking ass and puking Schlitz. The rock band most obsessed with chess since Yes. And, hands down, the most spastically captivating live act Denver had seen in forever. But the flame…
Kelly Clarkson, who’s slated to visit the Colorado Convention Center this week, is beating the odds. Her second album, 2004’s Breakaway, may not constitute great art, but it’s still spitting out hits years after Clarkson first rode Fox’s American Idol to pop notoriety. And compared with the wannabes who competed…
When the Supreme Court ruled last month against Internet sites that enable peer-to-peer file-sharing, it did music downloaders a favor. As anyone who’s ever visited P2P sites like Grokster and Morpheus can attest, sound quality is maddeningly dodgy, and the catalogue is hopelessly disorganized. The imminent shutdown of these sites…
Zach Sciacca wanted to know one thing, and one thing only: “Did that motherfucker just grab his dick at me?” That motherfucker was big-time raver DJ Icey, and, yes, that motherfucker had, in fact, just grabbed his dick at Sciacca, who was then a fast-rising hip-hop battle DJ and all-around…
On its major-label debut, Death Cab captures flashbulb moments of melancholy — the dissolution of a summer romance, growing apart from a lover, being dumped — and analyzes them with astounding honesty. Take the tear-inducing “What Sarah Said”: Solitary piano chords drive a vivid depiction of a sterile hospital where…
OK Go is back with a sophomore release that puts its brilliant debut to shame. Offering intelligent lyrics, infectious melodies and a bratty Brit-pop swagger borrowed as much from Let It Bleed as from Blur, Oh No turns loose thirteen party anthems that never sacrifice kick for cleverness. Swedish über-producer…
Dallas Wayne mixes country’s dyed-in-denim traditions with the stupidity-free sensibility of modern, insurgent C&W. On Fan, Wayne wraps his burly baritone around a batch of old-style tunes that mention trucks and jukeboxes but never scream cliches. (Fan’s intended early-2004 rollout was delayed because of eye problems that have left Wayne…
