The pitch-bender is Benny Benassi’s friend. The thirty-something Italian spinster has perfected — in collaboration with his cousin Alle, of Larry Pignagnoli’s internationally successful Off Limits production company — an irresistible electro-house-music fusion that would not be the same without pitch-bending technology. “Satisfaction,” the stratosphere-worthy single from Benassi’s major breakout…
Prog-rock is a tricky business. A genre scorned for pretentious, frilly indulgences — like emo or light jazz, Colorado style — the label alone is enough to doom a stellar band to death by preconception. In this prog world exists the valley of prog-metal, a subgenre strewn with laughable poseurs…
While Phish purists might pooh-pooh any project that falls outside the bubbling company of his erstwhile aquatic bandmates, Trey Anastasio proves himself to be a resilient and innovative musician who can stand on his own two gills. Having formed a new group, 70 Volt Parade, and recently teamed with more…
Echo and the Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch used to rhapsodize about his desire to be the new Frank Sinatra. And although Harry Connick Jr. beat him to it, McCulloch and crew wound up making an impact all their own. While much of the ’80s post-punk wave toyed with goofy futurism and…
Most Precious Blood is pissed off again. Religious fanatics, numb consumers, faithless exes, vapid politicians and those thoughtless carnivores all suffer in the New York gothcore assailant’s Merciless/onslaught. Rob Fusco’s seething vocals harmonize with the hurtling guitar work of Justin Brannan and Rachel Rosen in a smoldering manifesto against apathy…
The brand of country music lauded at this month’s Country Music Association awards doesn’t have much to do with the music’s origins; to understate the situation considerably, the line between Hank Williams and Keith Urban is far from straight. The same can be said of Freakwater, whose co-founder, Janet Beveridge…
Band names can be indicative of many things, but be wary of assuming too much. A handle like Weedeater can be misleading. For one thing, the act doesn’t do psychedelic rock. Nor does it do tripped-out drug anthems. And mistaking its members for dreadlocked hippies might end up in a…
Getting back together is the new breaking up. At least that seems to be the motto for local hardcore outfit Deadlock Frequency. After a series of inconspicuous incarnations, a few self-released albums and one notable two-year break, the act is back and resonating loud and clear. Reformed by original members…
It would be easy to write off Damian Lazarus as a casualty of the electroclash trend of a few years ago, which promised so much yet delivered so little. Lazarus was at the forefront of the movement as a label executive with City Rockers (the imprint responsible for bringing Tiga…
The Jamaica described on “Welcome to Jamrock,” the title track from Damian Marley’s latest effort, is not the same one depicted in the brochures of the myriad resorts lining the beaches of the popular vacation destination. In contrast to the images of light-skinned people celebrating sensual indulgence, Marley welcomes you…
“I’m actually not really a Grateful Dead fan,” confesses Polytoxic frontman Tori Pater. “I don’t tell many people this.” Understandably. Even I am stunned by Pater’s admission — and I have about as much use for Jerry Garcia and company as I do for a hairstylist. To hear such a…
Plenty of Christians are proud of San Diego’s Payable on Death, a band that has achieved mainstream hard-rock success even though its music frequently deals with cross purposes, so to speak. But drummer Wuv Bernardo points out that quite a few of P.O.D.’s most virulent critics know their way around…
Anyone pooh-poohing the idea of an all-girl AC/DC tribute band is neglecting one very important factor: the schoolgirl outfit. Strewn across the three corners of the country — Denver, Seattle and Austin — Hell’s Belles cross gender and state barriers in the name of girl power. We got to speak…
Milemarker is known as Chicago’s premier purveyor of microchip-addled post-hardcore and brainy political lyricism. But the group, formed in North Carolina in 1997, has had its share of detours. After a string of theatrically conceived tours and innovative, influential albums culminating in 2002’s Satanic Versus, Milemarker went into stasis, with…
In chick-flick terms, Kate Bush is Gone With the Wind. She’s a gem of a songstress who does romance in ways that have been imitated but never duplicated. She had the screechy-voice thing before Bjrk, the eccentricity of song structure before Tori Amos, and the lyrical weightiness before Fiona Apple…
First, a couple of basic axioms: Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek is underrated; Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock is overrated. That said, Sun Kil Moon’s Tiny Cities, an album of Modest Mouse covers, just doesn’t add up. While Kozelek has previously paid tribute on disc to both AC/DC and John Denver,…
Some MCs are dancers and dodgers, like Barry Sanders on the microphone; it’s hard to get a grip on them. Bun B is not one of those. As befits his stocky frame, he’s more in the vein of Jerome Bettis or Larry Csonka, a human cannonball who moves piles of…
This marks the third time in a row that Carlos Santana has made the same album. And if the success of the original model, Supernatural (a multi-platinum 1999 Grammy magnet), explains the project from a financial standpoint, it doesn’t make the disc any less redundant. Although the Supernatural formula essentially…
The Flobots have more in common with Bop Skizzum than guitarist Andy Guerrero, trumpeter Joe Ferrone and bassist Jesse Walker, who are members of both groups. The collectives also put on acclaimed party-hearty concerts that don’t always translate to discs. Nevertheless, Platypus, the Flobots’ new EP, waddles in the right…
Deceptively simple at first, the often-seething guitar pop of all capitals reveals greater complexity upon repeated listens. At its best, the band avoids coyness and cuts straight to the rock, with the right combination of crunchy riffs and chewy layers, recalling the Pixies and Sugar-era Bob Mould. Complex leads supplied…
Blackalicious, The Craft (Anti-). Incorporating a heavier slice of live instrumentation, Chief Xcel and Gift of Gab rhyme in sociopolitical treatises over epic funk backdrops that seamlessly bridge the distance between Curtis Mayfield and Slick Rick. Overall, Blackalicious eschews numb, dumb hook seduction for serpentine grooves and polysyllabic, head-fed lyrical…
Like a disc-changer stuck on random shuffle, Blue Turtle Seduction moves unblinkingly between jazz, funk, bluegrass, reggae, electronica and hip-hop. Undersierraground, the act’s first full-length studio release, merges silly Phish-like slivers and no-frills Sublime-like drumming with funk, bilingual lyrics and speedy mandolin runs into what the group calls “High-Altitude Bohemian…
