Aaron Dessner on the National’s new record

After finishing their tour in support of 2010’s High Violet, the members of the National didn’t have any immediate plans to record again. But guitarist Aaron Dessner, whose daughter had just been born, ended up with a lot of time on his hands. He began writing songs in his backyard…

The ten best Norwegian metal bands

Sweden is to death metal what Norway is to black metal. Norway’s sixth sense for finding black metal with the right amount of heavy guitar distortion, banshee shrieking vocals and an unrefined recording quality gives them a black flame kick that fuels the fire of many metal fans. Keep reading…

The ten biggest tropes in country music

What makes a great country song? Well, if David Allan Coe is to be believed, the songs require a few things: mama, trains, trucks, prison or gettin’ drunk. There’s got to be more to it than that, though, right? Like, at least five more things. Country music draws on the…

The ten best mixtape rappers of all time

Supposedly, albums are where it’s at. That’s when the artist is supposed to bring their A-game, convert the doubters, all that good stuff. So why is it that a lot of the time it’s the mixtapes that are the most enjoyable? Maybe it’s because so many mixtapes are when artists…

The ten best jazz pianists of all time

With the exception of players like Thelonious Monk or Art Tatum, piano players don’t quite have the name recognition of their horn playing counterparts. All the same, these ivory ticklers play an equally integral role in jazz. As such, just like our lists of the ten best sax players and…

The fifteen best hair metal bands of all time

Before grunge scrubbed the smeared makeup off of the face of hair metal and trimmed its flowing locks, an endless parade of longhaired dudes did their level best to destroy the ozone layer, fueled by a steady diet of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Oh, and, well, depending on…

Baroness battles back from catastrophe

By Jason Roche One year ago, Baroness was touring Europe in support of its critically acclaimed record Yellow & Green. The ambitious double album was generating a strong buzz for the Georgia-based band. The momentum came to a screeching halt, though, on a rainy morning in August, 2012, when the…

The ten best Swedish metal bands

Metal can’t get any more cold blooded than in Sweden, where you’ll find brain-freezing, below zero temperatures and snow drifts taller than concert halls. Despite having the most frostbitten, blackened and disfigured hands in the metal world, the Swedes rip apart metal like nobody else. As brutal as a ceaseless…