Naming your band Black Metal Jacket is a pretty bold statement. Not only are you borrowing from one of the greatest movies ever, you’re implying that your music…
You know Julie Doiron. I don’t mean you’ve heard her music before, mind you, either solo or from her time with Canadian indie-rock superstars Eric’s Trip. On her most recent full-length release, Julie sings like the best friend you haven’t heard from in years…
A funny thing happens to me when I review the albums editor-guy Jeremy sends me. I’m an old stodger, hate everything that came out after Lateralus, believe music is terrible right now, etc., etc. So I invariably start every session…
The obvious starting point here is the band’s name; who ever came up with “Complicated Shirt” needs to be taken out and beaten within an inch of their life. Following that, frontman Drew Benton needs to have his vocal chords surgically removed so he can never annoy anyone ever again…
I’m the most secular person you’re likely to meet, these days, especially down here in the almost-South. My parents distrusted organized religion, so the only times I went to church growing up were for funerals or weddings. And in my adult life, it’s never been something I’ve really felt…
Spacey, thoughtful, and — dare I say it — pretty, Setting Sun’s music is perfect for watching sunsets from a balcony while taking long drags from a licorice-flavored clove cigarette. Their sophomore release, Math and Magic, finds the band…
It’s fitting that the images on the liner notes are a rifle and a sniper, since the music on Mismo’s …and to the Republic is rather scattershot. The music ranges from a 311/Incubus style on “Fade Away” to mall-core on “Tears Of Ash”…
With The Streets, The Sounds, and The Love, the debut full-length from Jersey’s New Atlantic, the band lunges out of nowhere to join the crowd of thankfully-growing emo-pop bands currently smiling their way across America. New Atlantic run with that small-ish crew of bands…
If you read other reviews of What the Hell do I Know?, the debut EP by Pennsylvania indie quartet Illinois, you will find yourself barraged with a litany of comparisons to major player indie influences from the past five years or so…
Yep, new stuff up on the site, just in time for the end of May. Ch-ch-check it out… New Featured Band: The Scattered PAGES Reviews: Arthur Yoria; Land Of Talk; The Little Heroes; The Horrors; Sedalia; Sine Qua Non; Mick Sterling; & Tammany Hall Machine. More to come. (No, really.)
I’ve never met a musician, from Houston or anywhere else, who can reinvent themselves as effortlessly from album to album as Arthur Yoria seems to. Just when I think I’ve got him pegged, he slips out the side and does something totally off the map from what he’s done in the past…
Austin’s Tammany Hall Machine might not earn points for originality, but they can certainly claim a win based on execution. Amateur Saw occasionally has the air of pastiche about it — it channels post-Beatles English power-pop with an uncanny accuracy…
Nice guitar…um…but, yeah. Indeed, there’s slide guitars and upbeat drums, and a voice that sings rough and ready. This is very Fabulous Thunderbirds-y; bluesy, rocky, and gritty and yet still, perfectly lacking something…
Ambient; the term conjures up horrible images of bands whose albums consist entirely of either atonal, single-note compositions or droning, repetitive static. It’s a challenge to find good ambient music, but if you can manage to accomplish it, you’re bound to hear something amazing…
Sedalia’s Growtheries EP is just what it sounds like — it’s a nursery for the before-beginnings of beautiful song. In this sparse, echoey, uncooked lo-fi outfit (which is basically one guy, Ross Nervig), you may just find an overgrown barn…
With Cinematic Americana, California’s Little Heroes prove amply that you don’t need to be flashy or over-the-top to pen (and play) incredible, thoughtful, often heartbreaking music. The band isn’t out to wow you by being the smartest or funniest, no…
When I was in my early 20s and finishing up my Masters, I fell in love with Poe. Her first eponymously titled album was a bong in the lightsocket, angry and grooved. Lots of loops and sounds and such, and it didn’t really have the sound of a pretty face…
There are several things that are noticeable upon listening to Strange House by The Horrors. The first is how come no one has already used this name for a band? Especially with all the metal bands out there and then the legions of mall kids…
Pyramids is Pit er Pat’s second full length album. It was recorded essentially live by John McEntire, whom you may know from such hits as Tortoise and The Sea and Cake. If you like the post rock sounds of either of those groups, you might like Pit er Pat…
Got another new review up today (courtesy of Austin correspondent Justin Crane — hey, Justin); this one’s for the new-ish Pit er Pat album, Pyramids. It’s intriguing stuff, in a Chicago post-rock kind of way (which, yes, makes sense, seeing as they’re on Thrill Jockey). If you’re into that sort of thing, you can check […]
Musique Concrete. Krautrock. Spacerock. These are some of the terms floating around in sound-bite bubbles above the collective head of Brooklyn quintet Alex Delivery. Certainly, these are some of the forces at work on their debut album, Star Destroyer…
So, what happens when members of Tortoise, June of ’44, and The Boredoms get together and form a band? Probably not what you’d expect. Atsu Nagayama of Boredoms fame is the mastermind behind Sur la mer, composing the tracks on the EP…
Okay, so there’s no way in hell that I’d claim any responsibility for getting somebody to improve musically, but even so, I’m happy to see the change. A few years back, recovering pop-punker and Chicagoan Kris Racer (born Kris Narunatvanich) sent us his last full-length…
It’s been twenty years since I last saw these guys play live– back then it was in Nacogdoches, Texas, at a place called The Market — and since then have maintained only a peripheral interest in their music, but I was curious to hear the difference…
Gonna make this quick — off to watch big Scotsmen/wannabe Scotsmen throw hammers & such and eat hard-boiled eggs that’ve been rolled in sausage and deep fried. Just so you know, though, today’s update includes two bands playing this weekend: Alex Delivery does a psychedelic freakout thing tonight at The Proletariat (with Frog Eyes), and […]
I missed Hello Stranger when they played here almost a year ago; I will not miss them again. This is a great pop record, and I’m sure they’ll have some new offering by the time they tour again. “Take It to the Maxx” is all feel-good…
I think some wires got crossed up in the Space City Rock offices. An album like Alice Despard’s Vessel usually falls firmly in the stomping grounds of my esteemed associate, Marc Hirsh. I think he may’ve even reviewed one of Despard’s earlier releases…
Being a pop band in Houston seems to be a hard road to travel. I dunno what it is — the air, the water, the electromagnetic radiation from all the powerlines — but over the years, the bulk of the poppier bands I’ve run across in this town have been, to put it a bit harshly…
I hate to say it — and maybe it’s the sinus infection I’ve got talking, true — but Sucks Blood is mostly making the knives behind my eyes stab into my brain that much harder. I definitely admire Coachwhips/Pink & Brown guitarist John Dwyer for being able to funnel…
Dammit, I’m stumped. I’ve been wracking my brain to try to come up with what possibly could’ve been so big about 1997 the year that it would cause 1997 the band to name itself after it. And I’ve got no freakin’ idea. What, was it that Deng Xiaoping died?…
As you’ve no doubt been hearing, Low has recently been moving away from their trademark slowcore sound. Their previous record, The Great Destroyer, added distortion and rock elements, and their new record, Drums and Guns, moves into yet more uncharted territory…
After more than fifteen years of dedicated musicianship, Ted Leo is still searching for his voice. His roots are in D.C. hardcore, but his music frequently draws on folk and British mod-rock. He’s political, but he has neither the proletarian singability…
The Brokedowns play hardcore with touches of metal; their sound on New Brains for Everyone isn’t unusual, but their singer is — he’s a more subtle vocalist than most. Throughout the album, he sounds like he’s enjoying himself…
My first mistake was telling Space City Rock editor Jeremy that he could send me whatever he wanted. My second mistake was not getting completely drunk before listening to Beyond the Valley of the Barbarellatones…
It’s hard to believe Nicole Atkins is only 27 years old. I was so sure that the voice coming out of my stereo belongs to someone who’s already blown out the candles on her 50th birthday cake. And I do mean that wholeheartedly as a compliment…
Yeah, I’m pretty happy with this one — I interviewed The Western Civilization, one of my current super-duper-duper favorite bands of the crew who dwell in and around this fair city, a short while back, and we’ve finally got it online. It’s a hell of a lot harder than you’d think to transcribe a rambling, […]
ADULT. is a duo from Detroit (Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus) that, appropriately enough, plays electronic music. ADULT. recorded Why Bother, their fourth album, after a third member left the group. Their beats use lots of distorted keyboard and synth loops…
Yep, got a bunch of new stuff up, just in time for tonight — two of the bands reviewed, ADULT. and Parts & Labor, are playing together at The Mink, and they sound like they should be darn cool to see/hear. ADULT.’s not really up my alley, but they sound interesting, at least, and P&L’s […]
You would have to ground a teenager and then lock him in his room with nothing but a laptop and some vintage Playboys to get music as outrageous, hormonally-charged, and wonderful as this. But Toof is no seventeen year-old wanker…
I remember seeing Dashboard Confessional back when they did the “we’re still bros” tour with Further Seems Forever — Jason Gleason was singing for FSF, and Dan Hoerner was part of Dashboard at the time. The band that played right before FSF was Seville…
