[by Matt Brown]
Darren Hayman’s knack for verbalizing the trials and traumas of lower-middle Britain is well documented. As the driving force behind 1990’s indie outfit Hefner he grew a cult and enthusiastic following that hung on his every acerbic turn of phrase and whom took a great amount of pride from supporting a band rubbing [...]
[by Adam P. Newton]
It’s become altogether too effortless (approaching the point of cliché) to rail against the music industry and what passes for contemporary pop music. Yes, we are all aware that the major labels support safe, easily marketable acts to continue to increase their bottom line in an era of declining physical album sales. [...]
[by Josh Keller]
I fear you, my darkness, the debut EP from the Minneapolis based group Lookbook is a study in contrasts and is a strangely beautiful album that has very dark undertones. The duo is comprised of former Digitata singer Maggie Morrison on vocals and Grant Cutler from various local bands doing the music. The [...]
[by Jon Behm]
I first heard Suzanne Vallie’s singing at Minneapolis’s 331 Club, where Chris DeLine and I were having an impromptu site meeting over beers. Sitting in a back booth, chatting with Chris about the future of the blog, I remember a clear voice ringing through the club, cutting through the din like a knife [...]
[by Josh Keller]
If only the Killers could be as big and important as they seem to think they are. The band, who rode the coattails of the new wave revival of the mid 2000’s to fortune and fame, now seem to feel like they are somehow spokesmen for someone. Their first album, Hot Fuss, was [...]
Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman “Whatever It Takes (11/24/2008)” (mp3)
Tom Morello: (Official) (MySpace) (Wikipedia)
Tom Morello “The Fabled City” (album)
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Also: (Rage Against The Machine, Queens of the Stone Age & The Coup @ Alpine Valley Music Theatre 08/24/2007) (Zach de la Rocha & Tom Morello: “And Now What?” - CIW Protest)
[by Jon Behm]
Thanks to Gorilla vs. Bear, I have had a copy of Fight Bite’s excellent single “Swissexlover” floating around my computer for what seems like forever now. Every so often my shuffled playlist lands on that gem of a dream pop song, and I frustrate myself by frantically trying to buy the rest of [...]
[photo: Ben Clark]
[by Erik Thompson]
Seeing a band twice while they are still touring the same record can be a dicey affair. Either the show can be so similar in sound and scope to the first concert that it can be frustrating to pay for essentially the same show twice, or, it can be so radically [...]
[by Kyle "El Guante" Myhre]
So if press releases and interviews are to be believed, Theater of the Mind is supposed to be a cinematic concept album, a journey through the characters and situations running amok in Ludacris’ boundless imagination, an album with not guests, but “co-stars.” Ludacris is attempting to provide the soundtrack for a [...]
[by Josh Keller]
Coldplay, to me, have always been the musical equivalent of the movie genre lovingly known as “chick flicks.” “Chick flicks” are the types of movies that offer little to no challenge to the audience member and can be easily deciphered within the first couple of minutes of the opening scene. Most people [...]
[by Chris DeLine]
In three months Kanye West has stirred up a ridiculous level of hysteria surrounding 808s & Heartbreak, putting the album’s hype on par with any other release this year (almost). That being said, the album is just as much an experimental artistic venture as it is an experimental study in digital market and [...]
It is often difficult to gain a balanced perspective on an album after reading a single summary of the music. Bias can tilt the review, as can personal taste, history and just about everything else that is unique to the person writing it. So in an effort to offer an expanded perspective on the music [...]
[review: Jennifer Hood]
[photos: Marcus Johnson]
The early nineties, for me, were marked by the lovely smell of the smoke machine and the heavy mystery of dark, dank clubs. I’ve always loved that smell and the excitement the ethereal fog creates as it fills the room. The reassuring thing about a Sisters of Mercy show is that [...]
[photos/review: Jon Behm]
I had to make some tough choices on Monday night, music-wise. While great Monday night shows are relatively rare, somehow we ended up with three of them falling on the same date: Atmosphere, Deerhunter, and Holly Golightly and the Brokeoff’s. In the end, Atmosphere’s overcrowding of First Avenue and the Triple Rock’s cash [...]
[by Chris DeLine]
“Chinese Democracy” opens with a shrieking Axl Rose whose voice overwhelms a surprisingly sharp rhythm section. The song ignites the near-mythological album, also tossing aside any preconceived notion of what Chinese Democracy should sound like. But at this point in time, any interested listener has had access to various bits and pieces of [...]
Deerhunter
[review: Erik Thompson]
[photos: Jeremy Nelson]
It’s never a good sign when the first thing Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox says to the audience is “I’ve got some bad news to tell you.” I immediately became worried that the show was in jeopardy, but it just turned out that guitarist Whitney Petty was back at the hotel with [...]
[by Chris DeLine]
On pop-merit alone, “Womanizer” is enough of an earworm to draw interest to Britney Spears’ new album from even the most hesitant of listeners. The single, which is her first chart-topper since 1999’s “…Baby One More Time,” continues Spears’ trend of having about as much lyrical zest as Metallica’s James Hetfield. That being [...]
[review: Josh Keller]
[photos: Jon Behm]
There can be a certain loneliness to a touring band that can lead to an unnerving monotony, which in turn can lead to some rather dull shows. Everyone has been to the show were the bands are simply going through the motions in order to get done with the set list [...]
[by Jon Behm]
The Swedes like to joke that the Finns don’t have a language – just a mix of commonly understood grunts and gobbledygook. If you have heard Finnish before you might be inclined to agree – speaking it is sort of like getting into a broken bottle fight with your tongue. This is why [...]
[by Erik Thompson]
The hype started well before Glasgow, Scotland’s Glasvegas had even released as much as an EP, with major label bidding wars breaking out in the UK based simply on a string of self-released 7″ singles. And finally, for a change, the hype is well deserved, as the young Scots deliver a fantastic album [...]
