Concerts

Plenty of metal bands coast on sheer heaviness. But for Sunn O))), being heavy is more than just a journey; it’s the destination. For the past decade, the core duo of bassist Greg Anderson and guitarist Stephen O’Malley have taken the considerable metal cred of their membership in groups like…

A cursory listen to Psychic Reality will leave you with the impression that this outfit is part of the strand of the neo-lo-fi aesthetic exemplified by artists part of, and formerly part of, the Siltbreeze label. And just like those artists, the music translates with greater clarity in the live…

The city of Austin is a musical island surrounded by a sea of big belt buckles, songs about whiskey, and George Strait. Although the rest of the state’s country-music influence seeps into the city’s borders, for the most part, Austin bands have found ways to remain creative and original. Papermoons…

Green Day’s longevity and penchant for reinvention shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, the band had almost an entire career as long-haired, DIY pop-punkers in the late ’80s and early ’90s, releasing two albums on the indie Lookout Records and inspiring hordes of imitators before leaping into pop-culture consciousness…

These days, singer-songwriter Matthew Stephen Ward is best known as half of She & Him, a duo that teams him with actress Zoey Deschanel, whose rendition of Nancy Sinatra’s “Sugar Town” in the sparkling (500) Days of Summer guarantees that movie-goers will keep cutting her character slack even as she…

Throughout Pathos, it’s clear the Fallen ones do more with the post-emo formula than most of their contemporaries. What’s tougher to suss out is why and how, especially considering that vocalist Matt Guerin shifts from impassioned bellowing to guttural squalling in the expected manner, and the aural dynamics are in…

The appropriately titled “Intro” begins this latest Vitamins album, sounding like it’s going to be a work of ambient noise. Instead, it ramps up into one of the band’s best songs, the bombastic and rocking “Big Bang.” What is most impressive here is the seamless sequencing between tracks, as though…

Four songs into Glass Delirium’s debut, Thanks to a Monster’s Many Heads (which will be released Friday, August 14, at the Bluebird), the band seems like a darkly melodic, progressive metal group in the vein of Lacuna Coil or Evanescence. Then things get weird. Track five, “Glass Delirium,” is a…

Lord, please deliver us from pretentious, ponderous bands aimed at adult contemporary radio and the soundtrack of the next big indie drama/romance. Overly polished, too clever by half and not nearly as deep as they would like to believe, Wadirum displays a self-indulgent and self-satisfied approach to banal, dull coffeehouse…

In the world of heavy metal, lead singers are as indispensable as riffs and distortion — that is, except for when they get used up and thrown away like yesterday’s drumsticks. While frontmen are the face and voice of many bands, they seem particularly prone to quitting, dying or getting…

For someone who made his name playing in a rigidly defined, almost cartoonishly simple band, Jack White sure knows how to branch out. While his main gig, the White Stripes, doesn’t appear to be going anywhere — the duo is currently at work on its seventh album — White has…

If Denver had a dance-music Hall of Fame, DJ Sensé would have to be one of its inaugural inductees. Back in the ’90s, Sensé helped forge the dance-music scene that continues to flourish to this day. As a DJ and producer, he brought some of the classic New York house…

We always knew that Heart & Soul Radio’s Brian Johannsen was a beefcake from his days in Animo, as he and bandmate Jimmy Blair generating reams of press as half-naked hunks on the Warped Tour. What we didn’t know, however, is that the dude was getting paid to look so…

Since the release of their self-titled EP on April 20, Colorado hip-hop super-group Food Chain has given away and offered up more than 3,000 EPs and downloads. And there’s no slowing down the crew of emcees and producers. They recently hooked up with Colorado producer-of-the-moment Boon Doc, aka Boonie Mayfield,…

In the world of heavy metal, lead singers are as indispensible as riffs and distortion–that is, except for when they get used up and thrown away like yesterday’s drumsticks. While frontmen are the face and voice of many bands, they seem particularly prone to quitting, dying or getting fired, leaving…

Calm has been quietly putting in major work between touring overseas and recording its latest album, Anti-Smiles. One-half of the group, Time, released his solo album, Naked Dinner, last month and is on the road again in Texas and Arizona pushing that effort. One of the songs off the record,…

The fine folks at Basslab are offering a free workshop on the popular DJ/production/performance software suite Ableton Live at 6:30 p.m. Friday, August 14 in the Beta VIP lounge. Three twenty-minute sessions dedicated to using Live for the specific tasks of DJing, producing tracks and mixing down will be followed…

Ever wonder what a languid version of “Don’t Trust Me” would sound like drained of its vitality with completely earnest, singer-songwriter styled vocals? Actually, if you’ve ever wondered what 3OH!3 would sound like hopped up on tranquilizers and stripped of its hyperactive delivery and ever present smirk and recast as…

Yo! Raps Magazine must really have their ear to the street, or they’re just awfully prescient. This morning the site posted a Q&A with the Starting Five in their Next 2 Blow section. Starting Five? Next 2 Blow? Scratching your head? Don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of these…

You know how they say everybody’s a DJ these days? Based on the number of self-produced recordings we receive each week, the same can be said of recording engineers, too. These days, it seems, everybody also has a recording studio, thanks to the proliferation of cheap recording gear. Problem is,…