Pinback’s third disc is crammed full of bipolar mood swings. Balancing precariously between tightfisted intensity and big-hearted affability, the duo of Zach Smith and Rob Crow juggles gorgeous melodies, numinous lyrics and lush instrumentation. Full of mysterious fragments and unanswerable questions, “Fortress” is driven by a dorky drum machine and…
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…
Listeners inclined to dismiss Nelly as the MC Hammer of the 21st century should feel free to do so, since, basically, that’s what he is. But as a cheerful populist who aspires to nothing more (and nothing less) than entertaining every animal, vegetable and mineral on the planet, he can…
Free of lyrical worries, Paul Weller spent five relaxing weeks in Amsterdam, turning a dozen of his favorite songs into a curiously appealing all-covers album. By reinterpreting everything from an anonymously penned Scottish traditional tune (“Black Is the Colour”) to a sugary Top-40 hit that could still rot teeth from…
If, like philosopher Alfred Korzybski, you know how far a map can stray from the territory, an entire atlas can be downright disorienting. Likewise, Atlas’s debut CD, Ways You Once Thought Were Short Cuts, is a confusing series of creases, tears and folds in the cartography of post-punk. “Cutback,” the…
Decas hardly a hip-hop newcomer, having served time with Elemental and Prana, and his years on the scene enhance his latest solo album. On Shot in the Dark, for instance, his voice echoes with experience while relating the tale of a performer who pays the bills by doing cover songs…
When Sam McPheeters first shrieked “Born Against are fucking dead!” over a decade ago, it was only a sarcastic epitaph for his band. But it soon turned prophetic. In 1993, the seminal hardcore group broke up, leaving a legacy of political passion, fury and wise-ass iconoclasm. Now, after years spent…
Gift of Gab’s debut solo disc, 4th Dimensional Rocket Ships Going Up, is impressive. Gab, who is best known as one half of the Bay Area-based rap group Blackalicious, doesn’t stray far from his crew’s oeuvre on the new record, however, which begs the question: What’s the point of a…
New Jersey’s Electric Frankenstein actually gives grave-robbing a good name. By stitching together the castoff limbs of ’50s rockabilly, ’60s garage and ’70s hard rock, the revival-minded quintet reanimates a buzzing corpse to match the monstrous fury of the Stooges or the MC5. Brothers Sal and Dan Canzonieri have been…
“What the hell?” This question and others containing even juicier profanities may pop out of folks who spin The Folded Palm, a new disc by Vancouver’s Frog Eyes — but odds are good that the adventurous listeners among them will be expressing delight, not distress. Musically, bandmates Carey Mercer, Grayson…
It takes a heart of coal to sell off a wife for a handful of cash. Michael Henchard, one of the main characters in Thomas Hardy’s masterpiece The Mayor of Casterbridge, did just that and then dealt with the devastating emotional fallout. The woeful, gut-stabbing tunes that fill British singer-songwriter…
I once spent hours in the Roísín Dubh pub in Galway City, Ireland, where grizzled lifers raised pints with hip college kids and the house band’s drunken rendition of “Molly Malone” immediately followed an equally drunken take on Prince’s “Sexy M.F.” Flogging Molly’s Irish punk-folk hybrid is reminiscent of that…
On its current tour, Queensrÿche brings disparate worlds together, mixing heavy metal with live opera and enhanced AV technology. But this band’s never been easy to stereotype. It spent two years rehearsing rather than playing the club scene, and was signed after selling 20,000 copies of its self-everything EP. Thematic…
In the loosely defined underground genre of experimental noise, one man’s cement mixer is another man’s celestial choir. For the local racket merchants in Page 27, whose carefully sculpted dissonance has soothed and jangled nerves in the Queen City since 1994, noise is a many-splendored thing. With a shape-shifting audio…
Before he even sprouted facial hair, J. Majik (aka Jamie Spratling) was already turning heads — Metalheadz, that is — in the dance world. In the early ’90s, “6 Million Ways to Die,” a monster anthem of the hard-core techno scene that he produced under the name DJ Dextrous, caught…
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…
Some people dread reunions. It would be easy to assume that Charles Thompson feels that way about getting his old band back together. The charismatic Pixies frontman, who shrieked and howled under the name Black Francis before launching a successful solo career as Frank Black, is a notorious grouch. Interviewing…
Judging by its recent sales figures, R.E.M. doesn’t matter much anymore — but members Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills hope to prove otherwise. They’re part of Vote for Change, a pro-Dem tour that finds them teaming with Bruce Springsteen and other veteran lefties. On Around the Sun, meanwhile,…
It seems fitting that Green Day’s latest album is titled American Idiot. After all, the band made its name — not to mention its millions — being as much. Self-deprecation aside, however, with Idiot, Green Day has somehow managed to pour syrup on yesterday’s Dookie and, incredibly, turned it into…
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,…
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…
Best known for his work with Mr. Bungle and Fantmas, Trevor Dunn also has an impressive pedigree as a jazz bassist. Sister Phantom Owl Fish features Dunn, guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Ches Smith, but you won’t hear this jazz trio playing “Begin the Beguine” or “Night and Day.” Influenced…
