With analog synths blending in with the most cutting-edge sounds these days, this album sounds like it could have come out at any time post-Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise? Except that Kyle Person, the act’s only member, couldn’t have composed and put together the music alone as well…
Although there have been bass-and-drum duos before, Pittsburgh’s Dark Lingo takes that basic formula and twists it into compellingly nightmarish shapes. Making human voices inhuman by passing them through various guitar effects pedals and then making them swim through the thick churn of hypnotic, distorted bass patterns and insistent drumming,…
Eric Crespo is at the epicenter of the sonic force known as Ghost to Falco. There’s an eerie timelessness to Crespo’s voice, whether he’s singing more conventional-sounding Americana or the heavy, deeply rhythmic haunted pieces for which his projects are more well known. Comparisons to Nick Cave and 16 Horsepower…
Waves of hardcore have come and gone since the salad days of the early ’80s. With few genuine musical outlets for angst and rampaging energy open to young people in the past several years, it was inevitable that a band like Dethbox would come along and put its own stamp…
Upon first listen to Paper and Roses, Born in Winter’s latest, inevitable comparisons to Evanescence and Annette Olzon-era Nightwish are bound to crop up, particularly since these eight songs are similarly rooted in melodic, progressive metal and driven by female vocals. However, the material here doesn’t come off saccharine, like…
With quirky pop hooks and song dynamics that are just shy of anthemic, Cleveland’s Other Girls writes songs with a surprising level of sophistication and polish while maintaining a certain urgency and exuberance that makes each performance count. With atmospheric flourishes reminiscent of Band of Horses and a nervous energy…
Los Angeles’s War Tapes evokes the most insidiously catchy synth-pop bands of the ’80s mixed with the darkness of that era’s death rock. Imagine Sisters of Mercy with a dynamic rhythm section and without the humorless demeanor. The songwriting, however, isn’t exactly on a retro-nostalgia kick, despite clearly being inspired…
Taking its name from a heroin dealer in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Savage Henry has paid its dues for the past several years, juggling regular gigs and a tour schedule that extends well beyond the efforts of most of its peers. More impressive, the band has managed to…
Otis Taylor’s tenth album (issued locally this Thursday, June 25, at the Toad Tavern, in the company of John-Alex Mason) explores more love and its myriad aspects across thirteen tracks than most songwriters have or will in an entire career. And he does so with the soulful and colorful storytelling…
Experimental pop-folk songwriter Luke Temple has released a short string of critically acclaimed albums and even had one of his songs featured in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Within the last year, Temple put together a band called Here We Go Magic to perform his songs and release an album…
In an era when genuine political dissent has been considered treason — or, at the very least, seditious — it’s entirely appropriate that a punk band would form under the moniker Witch Hunt. Hailing from Philadelphia, this foursome plays the kind of raw, socially conscious punk that usually gets the…
After Boulder’s melodically atonal Mansfield Ghost broke up, it was entirely possible that the band’s unique guitar sound would follow it into the annals of local music. Fortunately, two thirds of Mansfield went on to form the decidedly noisier and more beautifully abrasive Gangcharger (due at the hi-dive on Friday,…
The Church w/Adam Franklin & Bolts of Melody Thursday, June 18th, 2009 The Gothic Theatre, Englewood Better Than: A show you’d normally expect from a band 29 years into its career. Adam Franklin’s bass player had to perform sitting down due to a broken foot, which may have had something…
Adam Franklin is well known for his role as the singer and guitarist in Swervedriver. His work in post-Swervedriver projects such as Toshack Highway, Magnetic Morning and his solo work, however, shows a remarkable breadth of musical imagination and a wealth of sonic ideas that reveal dimensions of talent outside…
Twenty-nine years into its career, the Church recently released Untitled #23, one of its most accomplished works in an already remarkable string of albums over the last decade. We had a chance to have a candid conversation about the band’s music, the true meaning of artistic significance and its dazzling…
Nervesandgel’s albums are incredibly varied; sometimes they tend toward pop exploration, other times it’s an exercise in the avant-garde. It Was All Just a Waste leans toward the latter. Opening track “Her Presence Was Felt by All” starts with shaped white noise that evolves into a dark, menacing electronic song…
Deriving its name from a song by Japanese art terrorists Hanatarash, Minneapolis’s Cock E.S.P. is one of the premier noise bands in the United States. The trio, which counts among its collaborators Thurston Moore and Merzbow, has inflicted its mixture of power electronics, field recordings, white noise and distorted ambient…
These days, any two-piece, blues-based rock band is compared to the White Stripes instead of the Flat Duo Jets. But American Relay really doesn’t sound like either of those bands, though it shares similar roots with the energetically playful jangle of R.L. Burnside and the freewheeling exuberance of Howlin’ Wolf…
See more photos from Broadways at westword.com/slideshow. Havok, 12 p.m. This four-piece band sounded like classic Bay Area thrash, stuff reminiscent of Testament and Exodus with a splash of Anthrax. The guitar work owed a clear debt to a death metal influence, and the vocalist’s wail and singing was akin…
Leonard Cohen Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison Thursday, June 4, 2009 Better Than: Cohen probably was fifteen years ago. Something must have happened to Leonard Cohen these past several years, because the performance the man gave on Thursday was stronger, more confident and even better developed than he has often sounded…
Few, if any, bands can claim the level of notoriety enjoyed by Norway’s black-metal legends Mayhem. From lurid but true stories of suicide to intra-band murder and connections with the burnings of numerous churches to purge the Viking homeland of the taint of Christianity, the music of Mayhem is almost…
Like many electronic acts at the moment, Baltimore’s Ear PWR is clearly drawing inspiration from analog synth-pop bands of the ’80s as well as the bizarre disco/ambient/experimental pop hybrid made famous by Giorgio Moroder. There’s also a hint of that surrealistic Teletubbies air (minus the borderline creepiness) to the band’s…
