From Autumn To Ashes’ Live at Looney Tunes captures the band’s classics in their live form for the fans, giving in to the all-out jams of post-hardcore and metal. It has the energy and atttiude of any other band and, at that same time, it has a personal feel that’s rarely recorded live…
I once had to make the agonizing drive from Houston to Los Angeles in one sitting. From the grueling scorch of land between San Antonio and El Paso through the mind-hell that is Arizona, I really wish that I’d had Blackwood Company’s debut album, Forbidden Fruit, with me…
I’ll admit I didn’t have high hopes for this album, a CD-R with a laser-printed CD sleeve and an unwieldy, pretentious-sounding name; I figured it was headed for a quick listen and then a toss on the ever-growing pile on the desk…
If history has taught us anything, it’s that bad things come in threes. Billy Mays, Michael Jackson, and Farah Fawcett all died in the same week — in fact, they died within three days of one another. Coincidence, no. Cosmic law…
Back in 1998, Rawkus Records released Black Star, featuring the iconic debut of Mos Def and Talib Kweli as the hip-hop duo Black Star. One year later, Mos Def released his critically acclaimed solo album, Black on Both Sides, solidifying himself as a socially aware and truly gifted MC…
I’ve always thought of The Velvet Underground as a band that was less about songs and more about a general feeling, a kind of sleepy-yet-restless nervousness that’s raw and wide-open and pretty much uniquely urban. To this kid from partly-rural central Texas, the VU was like the sound of Noo Yawk…
If you miss the classic rock of the ’70s before it got caught up in the hit-making machinery of AOR radio, or you recently discovered the musical gems hidden in your parent’s album collection, then Concrete Class, by The Lonely H, is an album you’ll want to hear…
Topless at the ARCO Arena is the first album from Wonderlick since their eponymous release in 2002. With two former members of Too Much Joy in the band, it’s tempting to skip breezily over the pretty surface of this album and chalk it up as another tongue-in-cheek record…
I usually come across four types of bands: the bands that impress you with their musical technicality; the bands you feel sorry for, knowing that this is their passion but that it’s probably time for them to hang it up; the bands that get you fired up and make you want to put your fist through something…
Let me start off by saying that I’ve never seen this much variety in a single record; I have to compliment Mr. Schutz for his combination of jazz, blues, lullaby-type songs, and Spanish flair. I think Gemini has the potential to be a good record, but without any sort of general theme at all…
There’s something fascinating to me about the ties between music and place — how a certain sound, song, or voice can immediately evoke somewhere you’ve been, something you’ve seen, and immediately pull you inexorably back to the exact moment when you first experienced it…
It’s hard to resist the temptation to compare Floridians (er, Floridian, at this point) One Small Step For Landmines and the significantly better-known Dashboard Confessional. Beyond the geographic kinship, both are shifting band/solo acts focused around punk-rock-bred guys playing hearts-on-sleeves…
Franz Ferdinand’s Tonight is the Scottish rockers’ third release since their inception in 2002. Released in January of this year, the album is at best hit-and-miss. I have to admit that musically, it’s worse than I expected. While at times there are some solid jams on display and somewhat creative rhythms at work…
Foreign Cinema’s Non-Synchronous Sound EP is pretty low-key. The four songs, “Arbitrary Map Mode,” “At the Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea,” “Ice Machine,” and “Lovers and Killers,” have creative names but little to offer in the creative department, as far as the music goes…
If you’re a fan of The Faint, you’re either going to really love this album or really hate it. The sound is actually so similar it kind of freaks me out at times; however, I’d say I fall into the category of Faint fans that really love this album…
Judas Priest’s new live CD, A Touch of Evil:Live, is a nice little payoff for diehard fans. The 11 tracks that make up the release are all songs that have not been previously recorded live, and this is saying something considering that the band has something like 30 live albums in their career…
This may possibly be the worst DVD that I have ever seen. Seriously. I was actually really excited to watch it and hear some great music, but I was very disappointed. The DVD was cheaply made and just consists of the band Arab on Radar carrying around a camcorder…
Patrick Wolf is back, with his quirky music and colorful image (he’s currently a bleached blonde), and his new album is sure to impress his loyal fans. The Bachelor is filled with Patrick Wolf’s characteristic violas and voice with vibrato…
I hear people lament about the lack of talent in Houston all the time, and I always have to look at them like, “what are you talking about?” Houston is teeming with great talent; just stop watching NCIS for a night and get out to see a show…
The Loud Wars is one of those albums that makes me want to go dig out an album I used to play ’til it felt like the CD player laser would burn out; in this case, the album they make me want to go grab is The Dismemberment Plan’s 2001 classic, Change…
Reel Big Fish’s Fame, Fortune and Fornication is no Born to Run or Pet Sounds, it’s true, but so what? There’s nothing wrong with having a little fun, and I enjoy a good ska cover song as much as anybody…
With a voyeuristic fixation on meandering, psychedelic soundscapes, Austin band The Able Sea has released a debut album to satisfy that taste. From start to finish, let there be no confusion: this self-titled work is well-primed to make you feel windswept, to hypnotize you. Listener, beware. The Able Sea is a trio, including Robert Pierson, […]
Have you ever had someone tell you they saw a great live band, and you’re like, “what the hell does that even mean?” Well, I’ve been watching YouTube videos of Oh No Forest Fires after receiving their The War On Geometry EP, and I think I’ve found the definitive answer on that…
My Education is an instrumental rock band from Austin. On their fourth album, Bad Vibrations, they seamlessly blend pastoral-sounding violin in with epic rock anthems. Their songs blend pastoral Dirty Three ideas with a more lyrical Mono into a sound of their own…
I think I’ve cracked it. It took me a while to get my head around it, but I think the best way to look at RX Bandits isn’t as a reggae+X band — like I’d always instinctively wanted to see them ’til now — but as a damn talented prog-rock band that just happens to pull in reggae, dub, punk, metal…
On Back and Fourth, soft-voiced singer/songwriter Pete Yorn comes off almost like a musical chameleon, to the point where I’m at first not entirely sure what to make of the guy. He starts off with gently determined, heavily folk-influenced country on “Don’t Wanna Cry”…
The Antlers’ ambient and elegiac debut, Hospice, has generated a veritable buzz from indie sites and bloggers alike since its online release in late June. For the most part, it’s been received well — some even going as far to say that Hospice is the best album released in 2009 so far…
You ever fall hard for somebody who you know is really, truly not your type, but there’s something weirdly attractive about them, some quirky thing that makes you look past what your brain’s telling you and convince yourself they’re The One for you?…
When I was in middle school, my musical abilities could be summed up by a few stagnant years of piano lessons and proud ownership of first chair in the band’s trumpet section. When the Tiny Masters of Today were in middle school, on the other hand, David Bowie was calling their music “genius”…
It’s not my favorite album, but it’s good. That’s what I would say if I had to sum up in one sentence what I thought of Handsome Furs’ newest release, Face Control. This indie-rock band from Montreal, Canada is comprised of husband/wife duo Dan Boeckner…
And now, dropping by from another planet…Ghost Mountain’s Siamese Sailboats. Okay, maybe not, but that’s sure what it feels like to listen to the trio’s seemingly acid-fueled mashup of Spiritualized psychedelia, nerdcore-style rapping…
The Austin quintet Diagonals are Steve Garcia, Ryan Camarillo, Wiley Wiggins, Ben Prentice, and Todd Larson, and plenty has been said about the 13th Floor Elevators influence on the their latest album, Valley of the Cyclops…
It’s lead guitarist Jason Willis’s awesomely meandering — yet still relentlessly driving — and somehow downhome riff that does it, honestly. This review almost feels like a cheat, on my part, because Buxton’s been playing A-side “Feathers” live for a little while now…
If you’re the type to use CDs as drink coasters, hang them from your car’s rearview mirror to watch them glisten in the sun, or maybe just for junk/experimental artwork, then I’ll give you this album for nothing. Just think: you could make a CD Art Car for next year’s parade!…
Want some punk for the masses? Blasphemy! Go buy some Green Day if your stomach can’t handle real punk. If you get tired of all the hate and madness, however, Double Dagger’s More is much easily digestible. What you get, instead of the routine “I hate George Bush,” “government oppression”…
The Human Zoo is the first full-length album from Austin’s Death is not a Joyride. Recorded by John Congleton of the Polyphonic Spree, it sounds like the dark mirror of that beacon of shiny happiness. The approach on The Human Zoo is highly experimental…
You know when some bands will release an album and have tracks that are just a few seconds long, or maybe a minute long, of just instrumental music? Well, I normally really hate that and just delete them from my iTunes library…
The Heartless Bastards’ third album, The Mountain, is a return of sorts for Erika Wennerstrom, the leader of the band. After breaking up with the bass player, the previous lineup dissolved, and she replaced them with the people that performed on the Bastards’ original demo…
Honestly, the greatest thing about the Small Sounds’ self-titled debut has nothing to do with the guitars, the melodies, or even the words. It’s just that the album possesses this amazing, gentle warmth — listening to those jangly guitars swing and sway…
The Riverboat Gamblers’ latest release for the Volcom label, Underneath the Owl, does well at providing die-hard fans with torrential vocals over quick, slappy guitars, but feels like a shallow push towards marketability — although I doubt that was the Gamblers’ intention…
