Grrrl riot. No, but seriously. Grrrl riot. While I like the overall sound of Wild Flag, I can’t quite get past the notion that they are former members of other notable bands; most noteworthy, perhaps, Sleater-Kinney. So why couldn’t this just be a new Sleater-Kinney…
Perhaps what makes Houston such a unique hip-hop destination is its almost exact-center proximity to the coastal hubs that first created her. Like a dank hoagie from Geno’s in Philly, the meat of the H-town sound is slathered, lathered, and drenched…
[SPOILER WARNING: Reader beware, there are some fairly serious plot twists mentioned in the following review…] Some people never learn, and some people only have one trick up their sleeves. It’s hard to tell which you’re dealing with sometimes, and Prometheus is a perfect example of that
Sonik Kicks (as suggested by the title) starts off with a very electronic beat, which I believe will become the basis of the entire album. I am wrong. This is anything but an electronic album, as it has various elements of pop mixed in…
Reign of Terror opens the very way that I like all my music to begin: with the roar of the crowd. Yes, the first song is seemingly pumping up the crowd, then turning into a short song about a guitar riff (“Super Shred Guitar”) that is quite pleasing to guitar enthusiasts such as me…
ZZ Top cancelled their June 23rd Houston show; beer drinkers, hell raisers, bikers, and bearded freaks alternately pouted and cussed. SCR bought a ticket to see them in Manshantucket, Connecticut, during the first weekend of their “Gang of Outlaws” tour…
Free Press Summerfest 2012 is here! You can already smell the sweet, aromatic mix of beer, B.O., sun block, and swamp ass so unique to outdoor festivals in Houston. But before you plan on skipping out on the daytime acts (you know you thought about it), think about what this festival is really about…
I used to be able to complete an entire thought. That is, until a coworker gave me a copy of Lick Lick’s Good Touch/Bad Touch to write about. The second effort by Matt Kelly (Sprawl, Middlefinger) and Eric Roach (Baby Got Bacteria) has the ability to…
I’ve been seeing John Mills-McCoin around at Houston shows for years now. I finally introduced myself to him at Mark C. Austin‘s Houston Invasion shindig at SXSW; anyone he meets is an instant friend. There are a handful of Houstonians that I see more than anyone else at shows I attend…
I don’t recall the first time that I heard the name Alabama Shakes. To me, it sounded like some kind of condition you would get from either living in the state of Alabama for too long or perhaps simply by drinking their water. That’s just my personal opinion…
When you have a band named Cafeteria Dance Fever, you set a level of certain amount of energy for which your band must contribute to its songs. You simply cannot have a band named Cafeteria Dance Fever and have the songs come off as something…
Life is telling me to grow up. With a few extra degrees under my belt, it’s time that I end my life as a professional graduate student and land a real job. Goodbye, t-shirt and jeans; hello to the shackles of button-up shirts tucked into slacks…
Said the Whale is a band like far too many others I have heard, yet I am not all that turned off by them. They have this sort of rock-pop storytelling quality to their music that borders The Beatles, David Bowie, and Queen on one side, yet on the other side…
I’ll freely admit that I’m addicted to music; it’s the truth, and hell, I could definitely be addicted to worse. It’s not all music that gets me, though, but those certain special moments, those songs or albums where it all just clicks somehow…
The second full-length album from Scottish band We Were Promised Jetpacks opens with a furious guitar rumble and then comes out sounding like the bands Rise Against and Hot Water Music had a baby — a sound which remains throughout…
SXSW is amazing. Sure, “amazing” is a clichéd word, but it just fits when describing the overwhelming clusterf*** that is the four (now five!) days of music at SXSW. (Unfortunately, I found out about the 5th day a little late…)
My first and only question for this album is whether or not the title is said in an offhand manner to someone at random or if it’s a direct question to the son of God. In either case, The Illegal Wiretaps are back with a vengeance. Of these ten songs, the band explores through three different styles…
Marvel’s The Avengers isn’t the Second Coming — though it feels like it’s been in the works almost as long as — but as far as big summer entertainment goes, you’ll rarely get much better. For those who may not have been following along, the Powers That Be of the Marvel films…
Delicate Steve plays mostly instrumental music on its/his debut, Wondervisions. The band’s mastermind, Steve Marion, is a very creative (and skilled) guitar player, with a good sense of arrangement. He has a good melodic sense, as well…
I will be the first to admit that I had never heard of AWOLNATION before I heard the song “Sail” on the radio. I immediately liked the simple-yet-complex nature of the song and wondered if perhaps the band was either Muse or the new Cage the Elephant…
I feel like Rip Van Winkle. I’m not sure how the hell it happened, but one minute I’m sitting here watching the munchkins open presents at Christmas, and I blink, and what the fuck? It’s April? Wow. It’s like the start of 2012’s just zipped past…
The last time I listened to a nine-minute song, someone had left their Tool CD in my car by mistake. I take my music in delectable bite-sized chunks, and if I so happen to want to hear them in a long-form format, I press “Repeat.” Taking that into consideration, I was directed to the first official release…
As has become the standard every few months, The Supersuckers have returned once more to put on a good old-fashioned rock show at The Continental Club. And once more, the show delivered on all fronts…
“You can make a masterpiece but that don’t mean you make a living” – Kyle Hubbard. I will be the first to admit that I stopped listening to hip-hop when Tupac died. Back in the day, when I thought I was cooler, I was blasting Tupac, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Public Enemy, and others from my stereo speakers. I also blasted them out of my car speakers, which I thought was cool because growing up in Connecticut, everyone is white…
When you hear the first three songs or so off Dominant Legs’ Invitation, you get the feeling that there exists this one guitar riff that this band really likes. It’s like that Weezer song about being on an island…
Wow. The two guys who make up Andrew Jackson Jihad, Sean Bonnette and Ben Gallaty, are quite possibly the angriest, orneriest, bitterest guys I’ve ever heard; after listening to the duo rampage their way through most recent album Knife Man…
Tarot Classics is a six-song EP from the most awesomely-named band Surfer Blood. Despite being about half the length of a normal album (you know, in terms of songs), this is quite possibly one of the finest pieces of music I have ever heard…
Animals as Leaders has really created something here that is hard to write about. The first thing that you need to know, perhaps, is that these songs are instrumental. Great, you think, this will be very easy to write about, since you don’t have a vocalist to love or hate…
Hearing — or watching, for that matter — Benjamin Wesley craft his music is somewhat akin to watching a sculptor work in reverse. He adds layer upon layer upon layer, building up rather than carving away, with sounds being introduced and stacked atop one another…
This may not surprise readers who are already fans of L.A. band Seahaven, but I’m going to say it anyway: guitarist/singer Kyle Soto’s voice takes some getting used to. When “Goodnight,” the first track on Winter Forever, starts, it comes in like loud…
At a time when bands like Thrice, From Autumn to Ashes, and Atreyu took over the music scene, bands like Everyone Dies In Utah would have fit that old cliché “a dime a dozen” almost perfectly. Almost. However, at a time when music seems to be changing direction…
Listening to England In 1819’s Alma, I feel less like I’m hearing an album and more like I’m watching some tragic, heartrendingly beautiful play unfold on a stage off in the distance. The music is stately and beautiful, all melancholy…
Damn. Just…damn. Listening to “All Static,” the A-side of this split-7″ from now-departed post-rock trio Sharks and Sailors, I can’t help but tear up a little bit…
The funny thing about music is that if I had heard this CD any time over a year ago, I would have thought that it was cute and probably good for kids, but I wouldn’t have really known what else to say about it. Hearing this now, while having a two-month-old son…
Jeff (Jason Segel) lives at home, although that probably goes without saying. In an effort to get him to do something, anything besides smoking pot in the basement, his mother (Susan Sarandon) sends him out to get some glue…
For this installment of SCR‘s Musician to Musician interview series, we sit down and chat with newcomers New York City Queens, who burst onto the scene last fall fully-formed, with full-length Somewhere Different, Somewhere New already in hand…
Alright, so I’m feeling compelled to say something I never, ever thought I’d say, and I’m just going to come out and say it: thank God for Maroon 5. No, no, I mean it; I don’t give a crap about their more recent stuff, but look back at 2002’s Songs About Jane…
With their most recent EP, Prisoner, quirky post-shoegazers Eternal Summers ride a fine, fine line, and right when it’d be all too easy to fall off completely and go one way or the other, they yank the handlebars back in the opposite direction…
There’s a great, great looseness to The Fresh Sum, the debut EP from Washington, DC band Mittenfields; it’s the kind of laidback, everybody-does-their-thing kind of feel that I hear far, far too infrequently these days. Hell, since the late ’90s, in fact…
A short while back, I was offered the chance to shoot photos of Radiohead and review their Houston show at Toyota Center. Of course, I jumped at the chance, but then I thought, what would I really write about the show that wouldn’t be said better…
