If Sum 41 sounds hardened on its fourth album, there’s good reason: The title refers to the name of a United Nations volunteer who helped the Canadian punk pranksters dodge bullets and explosions in the Congo, where the group was on a charity mission in 2003. The bandmembers haven’t totally…
Ever found yourself knee-deep in malt liquor, a mile high on weed and strung out on the Cartoon Network? Then The ShapeShifters Was Here is your new battle cry. Bubbling over with Simpsons samples and pop-culture references, the Shifters’ third full-length is a sprawling effort that sucks in and then…
The most obvious connection between Roger Green and Porlolo’s Erin Roberts is the Czars: The former is a full-time guitarist for the band, while the latter has occasionally appeared with Green and company as sort of an auxiliary member. This split CD, though, proves that there’s a deeper tandem current…
In a marketplace clogged with cookie-cutter combos lacking all but the most superficial signs of individuality, Art Compost and the Word Mechanics dare to be different. As Love, Death and Poetry’s title implies, the group, led by SETH, a veteran of Denver’s spoken-word scene, merges music with poetics to diverting…
Different DJ subgenres require distinctive skill sets. Turntablists working in a down-tempo mode, for instance, need subtlety and grace, whereas those who specialize in maximizing the beats per minute require quicksilver instincts and an ability to react instantaneously that borders on the athletic. The current king of the latter style…
Codeseven’s latest release, Dancing Echoes/ Dead Sounds, with its cushy synth pads and sweeping sonic panoramas, could be likened to a lost Elemental-era Tears for Fears record if it weren’t for the somber harmonic edges that have been sharpened into a metallic blade. Brothers Jon (bass/programming), James (guitar and synths)…
For most music fans, the term “singer-songwriter” conjures up the image of an artist who stands before audiences armed with nothing more than a guitar and a boatload of sensitivity. Given that Joseph Arthur relies upon both these tools on a regular basis, he can’t be called a stereotype buster…
John Prine has been hawking his musical hybrid of affable country simplicity and cynical cosmopolitan wit for more than thirty years, and he shows no sign of losing his edge. Though his last album was released more than four years ago, the country-folk Everyman still manages to consistently pack every…
Although Ozzfest is usually nothing but a slop bucket of shitty nü-metal, someone in Ozzy’s empire was on the ball this year when he tapped Washington, D.C.’s Darkest Hour. The brutal fivesome brought a much-needed injection of legitimacy and bile-spewing hysteria to the fest; those qualities were honed by years…
The ghoulish costumes and masks, the freaky-deaky stage show, the spewing geysers of blood and bodily fluids, the molten metallic grindcore — all of it started with GWAR. Well, okay, it probably all started with Kiss and Alice Cooper, but GWAR brought rock-horror showmanship to new highs (or lows) and…
Before ’60s garage-rockers got ahold of fuzz pedals, pharmaceuticals and the British Invasion, a different kind of noise was oozing out of American teenage suburbia. A raw, Neanderthal mangling of surf and R&B, it has since earned the dubious designation of “frat rock” — a style drilled into the cultural…
Although Roger Sanchez became a house-hold name in 1989 with the release of his breakout track “Luv Dancin’,” he has left his mark on much more than just the club circuit. From producing tracks for Michael and Janet Jackson to writing music for the Blade movies and Cirque du Soleil,…
I’m cleaning my apartment as we speak, if that’s all right with you,” says Chicago’s Edith Frost. “I’ve got to do it sometime.” That Frost, whose singing and songwriting is among the deepest and most emotionally resonant on the current scene, must squeeze tidiness into her schedule represents something of…
It didn’t take long for the vultures to strike. Less than 48 hours after Jesus died in a New York recording studio — 48 hours before his 36th year in the world began — eBay had more than 100 listings for “Rest in Peace” commemorative T-shirts, caps and hoodies being…
Oops!…I did it again. Last Sunday night, while you were watching Desperate Housewives or Sunday Night Football on ESPN, I was at the Avril Lavigne concert at the Pepsi Center. “You took your kid, right?” That’s the response I’ve gotten from most people who hear I was there. And, yeah,…
The triumphant, iTunes-aided arrival of U2’s latest flaunts the band’s rapidly diminishing skills — both the “diminishing” and the “skills.” First, the latter: “Vertigo” — as brash and unhinged and Dude, turn it up, dude a tune as this fat ‘n’ happy pack of rock-god lifers could ever hope for…
Laptop emo? Go ahead and laugh. But while you’re at it, pop in Customer, the third full-length by Collections of Colonies of Bees. An extension of the defunct post-rock group Pele (which originally featured Scott Beschta of the Promise Ring), Collections takes its predecessor’s knack for computer-scrambled melody and tips…
The Snoopster is the hip-hop equivalent of late-period Dean Martin. Having long ago established his commercial credentials, he no longer feels the need to break a creative sweat. Once he hires a gaggle of pros to do the heavy lifting, he can cruise through the recording process, leaving just enough…
Guess Beyonce Knowles is a nicer person than Justin Timberlake. After all, his promises to reunite with his old group, ‘N Sync, went down the pipes once his solo career took off, while Ms. K actually kept her pledge to get together with her homegirls again, even after 2003’s Dangerously…
Despite solid songwriting, burning fretwork, deep grooves and an earnestly dark outlook, Warren Haynes and company can’t seem to achieve liftoff on Voodoo, the group’s first studio release since the loss of bassist Allen Woody. The retooled four-piece, which puts on intriguing live performances, serves up a mostly lackluster collection…
Even though Matador is one of the biggest indie labels on the planet, it’s managed to maintain an aesthetic agenda that’s had everything to do with integrity and diversity, and little to do with cheap attempts at cashing in. But now, flush with the Top 20 success of Interpol, the…
Pianist Joe Bonner has been among the most enigmatic personages on the Denver jazz scene for decades, yet his talent is hardly a mystery. Lights Out, which receives its introduction to the public during a Saturday, November 27, CD-release bash at Dazzle, is another in a long line of consistently…
