Brooklyn-based collective Antibalas (Spanish for “bulletproof”) is the proud musical descendant of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. The Nigerian-born singer/activist is known as Africa’s Bob Marley and credited as the creator of Afrobeat, an amalgam of West African horn-heavy highlife, funk and jazz. Working within the framework established by Kuti and enhancing it…

In a parallel universe where musical adventure has as much cultural cachet as action-adventure, the soundtrack to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (remember, the one with the huge snake?) might have been composed by Rope. This Chicago-via-Poland outfit’s free-jazz-flavored, no-wave noise paints spooky pictures filled with intense bass…

The latest disc from Ministry, Houses of the Molé, may be only a small step forward from 1992’s thrash-industrial classic, Psalm 69, but it’s a quantum leap from 1995’s flaccid Filth Pig. Main Minister Al Jourgensen claims he can only write good songs when there’s a Republican in the White…

Earlier this year, Interscope exec Jimmy Iovine suggested that Page Hamilton assemble a band to wring a few dollars out of the retired Helmet name. Hamilton obliged, enlisting Orange 9mm’s Chris Traynor to take on guitar and bass duties and White Zombie skinsman John Tempesta to sit behind the kit…

Like the decade of the ’80s itself, too many of today’s retro-electro bands value style over substance and irony over originality. Santa Barbara’s Kissing Tigers are delightfully free of that. Their debut long-player, Pleasure of Resistance, features mature songwriting, lyrical depth and infectious melodies that just happen to be realized…

Limbeck hails from Orange County and has a Lookout!-style pop-punk resumé, but beyond that, it doesn’t fit neatly into that much-vaunted yet ridiculed scene. The quartet — frontman Robb MacLean, guitarist Patrick Carrie, bassist Justin Entsminger and drummer Matt Stephens — has reinvented itself as an alt-country songs-of-the-road outfit with…

The triumphant return of San Francisco’s glum, genre-defying American Music Club won’t disappoint fans who have waited more than ten years for a new record from the ensemble. Fronted by the volatile and brilliant, alcoholic and depressive Mark Eitzel, AMC released seven records between 1986 and 1994, combining folk, country,…

If the members of Machine Head (below, left) sound like they have something to prove on their latest effort, the menacing, prog-core opus Through the Ashes of Empires, it’s because they do. After meekly following trends with releases like 1999’s regrettable Burning Red and 2001’s Supercharger, which suffered the post-9/11…

I have a brother-in-law in the military who got shot with an AK-47 in North Korea,” says Asdru Sierra. “And we’re not even at war with North Korea…not really.” Sierra doesn’t want to talk about himself today. The vocalist and trumpet player for Latin-jazz/hip-hop ensemble Ozomatli doesn’t want to talk…

It should come as no surprise that, after a slew of releases on her own SBS Records imprint, Chattahoochee chanteuse Michelle Malone released last year’s Stompin’ Ground through Daemon Records. Daemon, after all, is owned and operated by Malone’s college buddy, cheerleader and homegirl, Amy Ray. It was Ray and…

Todd Snider first garnered attention with his 1994 single, “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues,” from his debut, Songs From the Daily Planet. Unfortunately, the too-clever, Dylanesque sendup of the Emerald City’s self-indulgence — coupled with his too-handsome publicity shots — caused many to write him off as a novelty act…

After nearly thirteen years of almost non-stop rocking and touring, Clutch has yet to repeat itself. The Maryland-based outfit continues to put out creative, unpredictable music pulling from influences such as Led Zeppelin, the Who, John Coltrane and Chuck D. From the aggro-hop of Transnational Speedway League to the spacey,…

Seattle’s These Arms Are Snakes is responsible for one of last year’s most exciting debuts, the blistering and elaborate This Is Meant to Hurt You EP. This fall, Jade Tree will unleash the band’s full-length followup, the enigmatically titled Oxeneers or The Lion Sleeps When Its Antelope Go Home. If…

Harry Connick Jr. (right) began performing at the age of five. His accomplishments since then should inspire awe and envy in almost anyone. Training under luminaries like Ellis Marsalis and establishing himself first as a brilliant jazz pianist and arranger, the New Orleans native went on to earn acclaim as…

Though the lineup has changed numerous times since the Dirty Rotten Imbeciles — named for an epithet hurled by one of the members’ fathers during an early rehearsal — formed in Houston more than two decades ago, the band’s creative core, vocalist Kurt Brecht and guitarist Spike Cassidy, has remained…

For twenty years, Skinny Puppy has combined horror-film samples, dark synthesizers and dance-floor-friendly beats to produce some of the most terrifying electronic music to come out of North America. Albums such as 1988’s VIVISect VI and 1990’s Too Dark Park are the apotheosis of the group’s sinister vision. Originally the…

It’s no secret that Neurosis is a changeling. Masters of mixtures and daredevils of disparity, guitarists Steve Von Tills and Scott Kelly, bassist Dave Edwardson, percussionist Jason Roeder and keyboardist Noah Landis have fifteen years of genre-bending music to their credit. Drawing on hardcore, industrial, metal, ambient and folk music,…

“I’m making a great living, and I’m not doing shit,” says Mike Doughty . This is not entirely true. From 1994 to 2000, Doughty fronted Soul Coughing, the avant-jazz-hip-hop-electronic band that helped lift alternative rock out of its grungy haze. After that group’s acrimonious breakup in 2000, he walked away…

The average record-label sampler is an inconsistent mélange of already overexposed songs that weren’t that great to begin with. Jade Tree’s latest 21-track compilation, however, is a rare find that showcases the most interesting and talented artists on the label’s impressive roster. Since launching the Jade Tree imprint in 1990,…

If you’re like me, the words “Christian metal” bring to mind visions of Stryper’s Michael Sweet strutting around the stage in leopard-print spandex, belting out hair-metal hymns. ZAO, however, ain’t your father’s Christian metal. Since its debut album in 1996, the group has created hard-hitting, truly heavy music with often…

The Shins (above) make the kind of ’60s pop rock that never existed, a brand of revisionist guitar glee that sounds like Crowded House just got its MFA. The band’s Phil Ek-produced sophomore release, Chutes Too Narrow, is a guitar-driven party record, peppered with surprises like “Gone for Good,” a…

Chris Carrabba once said that if he had heard Jonah Matranga’s Onelinedrawing records first, he might not have bothered to create Dashboard Confessional. Listening to The Volunteers, it’s easy to see what he meant. Like Carrabba, Matranga has done time as a rock-and-roll frontman, first leading the Sacramento-based outfit Far,…