The good news is, The Chronicles of Life and Death actually succeeds at its goal: breaking Good Charlotte out of the post-Blink-182 ghetto. The orchestral ambition barely hinted at on the band’s previous effort, Young and the Hopeless, is slathered all over the new disc. Sure, there’s still lots of…

Ever notice how hilarious Nick Cave is? Seriously, the guy’s a scream. Take, for instance, Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus, the goth maestro’s 666th release since leaving the mythic gloom-punk group the Birthday Party over two decades ago. This double disc is infested with every ghoulish punchline and macabre cliche…

The Moths’ Jason Cain is a known bullshit artist. Just ask the subscribers to his group’s weekly e-mail updates who are treated to regular doses of his bizarre, non-sequitur humor and schizoid rants. There are the top-secret schematics involving pieces of potato bread and bright-red yarn. And the “wee dead…

Not too many 22-year-old indie kids cite Tom Petty as their creative catalyst. But after Denverite Gann Matthews was dragged by his dad to a Petty concert a decade ago, he learned a few chords on the guitar and started penning tunes of his own. One hundred and fifty songs…

Have you seen that commercial for the Scentstories Fragrance Player? Instead of a music disc, you stick some CD-shaped odor puck into it, and a burst of perfume comes floating out. They have actual titles, too, like Relaxing in a Hammock and Strolling in the Garden. Well, when they turn…

One of the gloomiest retro-wave acts in recent memory decides to name its sophomore CD Antics? After painting itself into a corner with buckets full of black fingernail polish, Interpol is trying to squirm out of its monochromatic straitjacket — figuratively speaking, of course. Antics’s cover is just as stark,…

Want to see a paradox in action? Try giving IQ tests to Hot IQs. After staring at the photocopied, stapled piles of paper incomprehensibly for a few seconds, the band’s three members — bassist Bryan Feuchtinger, drummer Elaine Acosta and singer/guitarist Eli Mishkin — finally figure out what they’re looking…

By now, even deaf invalids are sick to death of mash-ups — those annoying DJ cuts that smear the vocal tracks of one song over the instrumentals of another. Looks like it’s time to take the whole concept to the next level: a band that crams together the tunes of…

Metronomic beats? Subtle yet complex layers of vintage keys and guitar? A woman singing robotically sexy French/English lyrics? Nope, it’s not Stereolab; it’s England’s Electrelane. But while comparisons to its better-known influence are inevitable, Electrelane is no mere ‘Lab creation. Formed in 1998, the all-female quartet has steadily assembled a…

Politics is a hot topic in the music realm right now, from the superstar stratosphere of Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M. all the way down to your everyday struggling punk-rock band. Virginia’s Strike Anywhere may not be filling stadiums, but its searing melodic hardcore and fierce commitment to social issues has…

Write this down so you don’t forget it: My Calculus Beats Your Algebra is the least pretentious band in Denver. True pretension, after all, lies in trying to be something you’re not. And with its self-titled CD, the duo of Bryan Danknich and Thorin Klosowski proves that its uncompromising blitz…

When French post-modernist Gilles Deleuze wrote “The abstract does not explain, but must itself be explained,” he had no clue his ideas would inspire a German avant-electronic duo named Mouse on Mars. The group’s penchant for Deleuze has already been documented by its contributions to Folds and Rhizomes and In…

Regardless of what the codpiece-metal marauders in Manowar taught you, rock and medieval weaponry do not mix. Apparently, this lesson never penetrated the thick skull of Wolf Eyes leader Nathan Young, who incurred a concussion and a scalp full of staples recently after clocking himself upside the head with a…

If rock critics were hunters, it’d be Scissor Sisters season right now. Ever since its flamboyant self-titled debut went platinum in the U.K. earlier this year, the Gotham-based quintet has been the target of just about every brush-off and put-down in the music-journalist arsenal. To set the record straight: Yes,…

Watching Vaux (appearing Friday, September 17, at Rock Island) play in a basement years ago, you’d never have guessed that this is where they’d wind up. The group was called Eiffel then, and while its brand of hook-laden emo was clearly more ambitious than most, the players’ visceral, subterranean intensity…

Tim Kasher just isn’t himself today. No big surprise coming from the leader of Cursive, a group in which Kasher exhibits entire textbooks of sociopathic ills — not to mention an uncontrollable urge to narrate in tongues, juggle identities and reference himself as someone who tends to reference himself a…

If you have to rip someone off, at least shoot for the good shit. New York City’s the Exit picks some great bands to plagiarize, but oddly enough, the trio covets its victims’ more lackluster work: U2’s October, the Police’s Synchronicity, Bad Brains’ I Against I. One man’s trash, though,…

I just find that I learn more and more from the reality of stuff and how you should, like, take it,” says Bright Channel’s Jeff Suthers, philosophically, his forehead furrowed in puzzlement. “You can get too wrapped up in stuff and take it way too seriously.” Upon listening to Bright…