Jealous Creatures, Little Heaven Big Sky
Once upon a time, I tried to write a screenplay for a road movie. It pretty much sucked, frankly, but the part of the process I found myself enjoying the most, weirdly, wasn’t the actual writing of the story…
Live: Deadmau5
Sometimes daily life gets in the way of doing very important things that perhaps on their own might not necessarily require a significant amount of time to complete, but when paired with the humdrum requirements of day-to-day prior obligations…
Cymbals Eat Guitars, lenses alien
I’ve got to hand it to Cymbals Eat Guitars: I was fished-in right from the start of lenses alien, the Staten Island quartet’s latest full-length. The band makes me think of that sadly short-lived period in where bands got crazy merging…
MonstrO, MonstrO
These days it feels all too rare to find a “heavy” band that doesn’t fit into some neat little categorization or sub-categorization — doom metal, stoner metal, black metal, all these rigid little boxes upon boxes bands get shoved into…
Jacuzzi Boys, Glazin’
I can’t deny it, no matter how hard the cold, dark parts of my soul want me to: with Glazin’, Jacuzzi Boys have thrown together one of the flat-out cheerful-est things I’ve heard in recent years, and yeah, it’s fun…
Reptar: All Tomorrow’s (Epic) Parties
The first time I stumbled across Athens/Asheville gang Reptar, I honestly had no idea what the hell was happening. I walked into their debut EP, Oblangle Fizz, Y’all, pretty much blind…
Brett Detar, Bird In The Tangle
Maybe it’s just me, but some days it sure feels like every emo/punk frontman is secretly a down-home country troubadour at heart. While I haven’t heard much of what Brett Detar’s “real” band, The Juliana Theory, has been doing the past several years…
Live: Hippiefest 2011
On Friday, September 2nd, Houston was served up a wonderful and reflective night of peace, love, and retro-fitted classic rock from the ’60s and ’70s, as “Hippiefest 2011” came groovin’ into the Arena Theater…
Live: IDentity Festival Houston
We came, we saw, we left early. We were berated for lack of press pass (thanks, booster club!). We rather unsuccessfully tried to reaffix our apparently fictional press passes back to our shirts, pants, sweaty legs, and, finally, camera bags. We jammed…
Omotai: Unite All Inhuman Monsters
I’m just going to come right out and say it, folks: Omotai isn’t really a “band.” What they are, rather, is some sort of massive sonic beast birthed beneath the crust of the planet, way down where it’s dark and hot and inhuman…
Sideshow Tramps, Revelator
It was the kid who opened my eyes on this one; I can’t take credit, not really. I’d put the Sideshow Tramps’ brand-new full-length, Revelator, on in the car on the way to school/work, and partway through lead-in track…
J Mascis, Several Shades of Why
I suppose it’s only appropriate that J Mascis, the king of the slackers, released his first solo studio album after 25 years of guitar-lacerating band recordings. An almost entirely acoustic album, Several Shades of Why stretches his talents…
Sevendust, Cold Day Memory
Back in the late ’90s, I was in a magazine with Atlanta metal dudes Sevendust. No, really; okay, so it wasn’t me so much as it was my now long-dead band, but still. It was a pretty monumental thing for us at the time…
Page One: Inside the New York Times
The fact that you’re reading this on a Website rather than in a newspaper or book somewhere should tell you, whether you realize it or not, the current state of flux in media. The newspaper, and the news business as we have known it, is dying…
Active Child, You Are All I See
Take the most stately, delicately grand — but not overwhelming — music Kate Bush ever recorded, all fragile, glacially beautiful keys and soaring, angelic vocals, then weld to it a funkier, more ’80s-influenced sound…
The Debt
It’s not a surprise to say that Hollywood — and audiences in general — loves a good revenge thriller. Watching a hero blow things up and kill villains is fun, and with bad guy who has it coming, it’s even more fun…
Male Bonding, Endless Now
Pretty much anything Sub Pop records puts out and puts their name behind is guaranteed to be good stuff. Or, at the very least, worth a listen. Such is the case with English punk rock band Male Bonding…
Live: Braving the Heat — Vans Warped Tour 2011
The H-town stop of the Vans Warped Tour was held this year at The Showgrounds at Sam Houston Race Park, and as always, Warped had something for everyone’s taste, with 66 bands on multiple stages. Houston was the second stop of the Tour…
A Better Life
Years ago, Carlos Galindo (Demián Bichir) crossed the border from Mexico to America. Since then he’s bounced from job to job, had a son (José Julián), and gotten a divorce…
The Julys, The Julys EP
There’s a lot to The Julys’ new self-titled EP that’s decidedly outside the pop realm, with the band grabbing onto a funky, jazzy vibe on opening track “Springsteen,” throwing in some prog-rock bits on tracks like “Privacy” and “Bowie”…
Live: Ultra Music Festival & IDentity — The Road to Ultra 2012
Ultra Music Festival: three li’l words that bring such a huge smile to the faces of all who fully understand what they mean — and we’re not just talking about basic comprehension of the definition of words, here…
Venomous Maximus, The Mission
Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching and reading far, far too much post-apocalyptic stuff lately, but to my ears, at least, there’s something seriously end-of-the-world-sounding about Venomous Maximus’s latest EP, The Mission…
Letters to Voltron, Robot Journey
I’ve been to a couple of Letters to Voltron shows. They start out with front man John Wayne Comunale asking in a loud demonstrative manner to the raucous and sweating peanut gallery before him if they are indeed ready to fornicate…
The Mathletes, Excalibur
I’m not sure what happened, but I’m pretty sure something did, somewhere along the way. The last time The Mathletes — which is generally, for all intents and purposes, singer/songwriter Joe Mathlete…
The Bexar County Bastards, Come And Take It
Okay, I think I get it now. I was confused, at first, by the Bexar County Bastards’ name, of all things — it just didn’t seem to fit with what I knew/know of Bexar County, that chunk of Texas centered around San Antonio. Bastards?…
Curren$y, Weekend at Burnie’s
For someone who smokes so much weed, Curren$y (yes, I will be spelling it this way) has managed to be quite productive — the New Orleans native has pushed out four official albums and three mixtapes in two years…
Square and Compass, Square and Compass EP
On their debut EP, Square and Compass drink deep, deep, deep from the Braid cup, which seems to’ve been left on the shelf by the bulk of today’s supposed “emo” bands. For Square and Compass, though, that’s a damn good thing…
Two Star Symphony, Titus Andronicus
It isn’t often I have to go back to the huge, dog-eared copy of Riverside Shakespeare I hung onto after college just so I can write a review, but sometimes, that’s just how it goes. I’m working at a bit of a disadvantage…
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Will Rodman (James Franco) has an understandable obsession: his father (John Lithgow) is slowly following apart from Alzheimer’s, and his boss (David Oyelowo) won’t get behind the unconventional genetic cure…
Cain Marko, At Sea
Ah, damn… Even now, decades on from that first time when the love was kindled inside my heart for heavy-yet-melodic guitars that are raw but beautiful at the same time, thoughtful lyrics yelled/howled like nothing else mattered…
Another Earth
The Greek philosopher Philolaus once theorized there was a mirror Earth orbiting the Sun opposite us, an Earth exactly like us, filled with people exactly the same as us, living our lives. That’s a pretty esoteric subject for a drama about life and death…
Searching for Signal, As If Nothing’s Changing
There’s an appealing gentleness to As If Nothing’s Changing, the latest EP from Houston/Austin post-rock band Searching for Signal; the band doesn’t drive things anywhere so much as coax the music forward…
Holy Fiction, Hours From Dance
My advice for listening to Holy Fiction’s Hours From Dance? Don’t even think about it in relation to the band’s “real” full-length, 2010’s excellent Hours From It; just forget that album even exists, at least for a little while…
Roky Moon & BOLT!, American Honey
Let me be up-front about it: if you’re already familiar with Roky Moon & BOLT!, the band’s new full-length, American Honey, is going to sound, well, pretty familiar. Kind of. Looking at the track listing for the album, I’m seeing a lot of songs I’ve heard in some form…
The Slow Poisoner, Magic Casket
There’s a part of me that really, really wants to hate The Slow Poisoner’s Magic Casket. I’ve never been big on the whole horror schtick — the goofy, faux-serious Gothic lyrics, “creepy” vocals, and cheeseball B-movie samples, it always, always, always rubs me the wrong way…
Captain America: The First Avenger
During the height of World War II, a crazed madman digging up secret treasures all over Europe has discovered a way to bring the entire world under his control, and the embattled forces of the Allies might not be able to stop him. Their only hope is to fight fire with some mad-science fire…
Peloton, Peloton
I first took a listen to three-man instro-sludge-metal outfit Peloton’s self-titled debut EP on a whim, really, just curious to see what they sounded like. I’d missed seeing them a while back, and they’d come highly recommended…
Emmure, Speaker of the Dead
Normally, metalcore-ish stuff like this gives me a freaking headache and has me reaching for the “Stop” button after barely two tracks; there’s only so much I can take of pummeling, detuned guitars and unintelligibly bellowed vocals, y’know?…
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2
The length of the cast alone should tell you just how long this has been coming; after 10 years, the Harry Potter series finally comes to a close with an extended bang. Mainly because that’s pretty much all it has left. It should come as no surprise…
Balaclavas
Okay, so I’ve needed to add Balaclavas to this here list for a long time now. Beyond the perennial culprits that are my general laziness and slowness, there’re a couple of outside factors to blame…
