From the opening bars of Sweater Club’s debut full-length, it’s clear that something unique is going on. While a power trio melding rock, punk and reggae isn’t exactly new — heck, the Police did that — the addition of a three-piece brass section (trumpet, trombone and sax) gives this Oregon…
The utter conviction and stark yet fiery edges of Bright Channel’s music contrast sharply with the swirling, drifting, ethereal sound of Volplane, the previous project of Jeff Suthers and Shannon Stein. From 1997 to 1999, prior to forming Bright Channel, the duo wrote atmospheric music on par with the shoegazers…
Ms. Rose is an accomplished actress, with experience on stage and screen. Yet she’s also an admirable vocalist who’s done a lot of stylistic maturing since her days in Sympathy F, a memorable ’90s band that temporarily turned her into a rocker. Act II, whose release will be celebrated on…
Azam Ali, Elysium for the Brave (Six Degrees Records). If Condoleezza Rice really wants to solve the current Middle East crisis, here’s an idea: Position a loudspeaker on the border of Israel and Lebanon and set Azam Ali’s latest on infinite repeat. If Elysium’s transcendent music and Ali’s angelic voice…
Of all the labels to be unfairly saddled with, the oxymoronic “Christian punk” tag has dogged this Pacific Northwest trio for more than a decade. Sure, these fine, not-so-young lads don’t spew expletives like hard-core legend Black Flag, nor do they wallow in sexual depravity like punk godfather Iggy Pop,…
Nearly every critique of Keane’s new album, Under the Iron Sea, sports comparisons to the same two or three earnest, melodic, big-selling Euro-bands. In many respects, the ubiquity of these references signifies a failure of imagination on the part of the music-reviewing community (big, fat surprise). Nevertheless, a listen to…
Bronx native Jason Kibler, aka DJ Logic, got his start spinning records at local community events in the ’80s, where he quickly attracted the attention of Living Colour’s Vernon Reid and a cast of others with his hip-hop and jazz-inflected beats. Logic has since added his signature grooves to hundreds…
Although the differences between Bad Wizard and the aforementioned Keane are voluminous enough to fill several sets of encyclopedias, they share at least one major characteristic: a fundamental lack of originality. But unlike Keane, whose members clearly aspire to pop-music immortality, the Wizards, appearing alongside 3 Inches of Blood and…
Even though Metallica dragged thrashy speed metal into the mainstream with its “Black” album, most of the better, more imaginative practitioners of the style remained relatively obscure. While acts such as Testament, Voivod and Metal Church never became household names, their mixture of aggression, precision and obsession with the dark…
Nick and Jessica. Eminem and Kim. Brad and Jennifer. Jeepers, isn’t there one celebrity couple around that can stay together for the long haul? Oh, right, there’s San Francisco lovebirds Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel, aka Mates of State. They’re bigwigs in the indie-rock universe who have been together for…
Get Him Eat Him is the latest purveyor of the jittery, keyboard-laden pop that will hopefully someday replace emo as the soundtrack for angsty teenagers everywhere. With so much more to say than hackneyed harangues concerning shallow love gone wrong, Get Him Eat Him’s bubbly, buoyant songs employ a refreshing…
You gotta wonder if maybe Billy Idol invested in the patenting of hair gel, since there are few who’ve done as much to bolster its sales as he has. The only time he veered from his trademark peroxide-blond spikes was in ’93, for his techno-informed Cyberpunk, and the dreadlocks that…
The art-damaged psychedelia perpetrated by the infamous Butthole Surfers is pretty much impossible to imitate. No one who’s seen the band live has ever been the same after experiencing the maddening sonic onslaught and disturbing projections. The Skivies (due at 15th Street Tavern this Friday, August 4, alongside Action Friend…
DJ Skribble (slated to appear at the Church this Thursday, August 3) began his career in the early ’90s as a member of Young Black Teenagers, a tongue-in-cheek hip-hop crew whose Top 10 hit, “Tap the Bottle,” landed it on a tour with Public Enemy and Primus. As a hip-hop…
As World Cup fever was reaching a boil, Ian Parton, the musical player-coach of Brighton, England’s Go! Team, was contacted by Nike about using one of his group’s songs in a soccer-themed television spot. He admits that the concept was pretty benign — just a montage of clips showing famous…
Last week I had the great misfortune of suffering through the first two episodes of The One: Making a Music Star, which is well on its way to becoming reality television’s Ishtar. A mutant hybrid of American Idol (natch) and Making the Band that pits eleven contenders against each other…
It’s impossible to overstate Jeremy Enigk’s influence on indie rock over the past decade. Sunny Day Real Estate, the Seattle-based quartet he fronted, was at the vanguard of the mid-’90s emo scene, inspiring countless disciples. With a sound that took the intensity of hardcore and infused it with soaring melodies,…
Mr. Lif is a throwback to a time when MCs rapped about things that mattered. So it should come as no surprise that Lif, aka Jeffrey Haynes, often cites Chuck D, Rakim and KRS-ONE as his primary influences. As commercial rap continues to devolve into something resembling the World Wrestling…
Golden Smog, a group featuring moonlighters from several rock and roots combos, has lingered for a long time, particularly by side-project standards. On Golden Smog, an amusingly sloppy EP, arrived circa 1992, with two enjoyable full-lengths following in 1995 and 1998, respectively. There’s been plenty of radio silence since then,…
Inventing punk must have been a dirty job. You had to make up new rules for the guitar, cram your hairy appendages into ladies’ pumps and lingerie, get hooked on hard drugs and squeeze Howlin’ Wolf and the Shangri-Las into the same three minutes. That routine shortened the lives of…
Compilations like Juke Joint II are the DiGiorno of mixes, culled with such impeccable taste of inspiring breadth that it sounds like your music-obsessive friend could be mixing it live in your living room. Normally, buying such mixes seems like a lazy shortcut; if the groups are good, you buy…
Contrary to popular belief, Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carrabba is one of the ballsiest men in music. That statement might seem absurd, considering that…well, he’s Chris Carrabba, for chrissake. But during the first part of the decade, when critics and other musicians were busy distancing themselves from emo’s fallout, the…
