This album should come with a sticker: “Only play loud.” Played in the background, Comets on Fire’s Avatar sounds like a melange of various psychedelic bands, with a potpourri of Blue Cheer, a sprinkling of 13th Floor Elevators…
There is something to be said for the freedom that comes with doing music for yourself. There is a luxury a band out working for a label will never have, the ability to create a picture much like the individuals who make up the band…
On their second EP, UFO Stories, Forest Giants lure you in with a simple and very narcotic musical recipe. Nothing is overdone, nothing is forced, and the end result sounds like they just put a microphone up in their living room…
There was a time when Las Vegas lounge music was taken seriously — back then, the immortal Rat Pack took audiences by storm and reigned supreme, and even their lounge singer hangers-on got some respect. Then along came Saturday Night Live…
If this single for “INRI” is any indication of who The Plot to Blow up the Eiffel Tower is, and if this is an example of what Art Fag records is going to put out, then I am confident in saying that nobody is going to care about either…
The Pat McGee Band’s latest album, Save Me, plays like a real rock n’ roll album should. It goes right in the CD player, spins around really fast, and some kind of laser picks up some kind of digital information, and…other stuff happens…
On Heavy Hands, Ladyfinger (ne) borrows from the last 30 years or so of heavy metal. Singer Chris Machmuller sounds like a cross between Robert Plant and Perry Farrell (which should also result in an ego large enough to damage small European countries)…
I’ve found my new guilty pleasure. An album saturated with so much indie-pop goodness it makes your tummy hurt from the sweetness. Kid Theodore’s seven-song debut EP, goodnight…goodnight, is a pop lover’s dream…
“How do you know when a stage at a rock concert is level? Drool is coming out of both sides of the drummer’s mouth!” “What’s the last thing a drummer says before he/she is kicked out of a band?…”
Back in fall of 2005, when I first heard Vancouver-dweller Chad VanGaalen’s peculiar brand of indie-art-pop genius, on Infiniheart, his “debut” disc of two-year-old recordings, I found myself being pretty critical. It was great stuff when it worked, sure…
Michael Napolitano doesn’t want to go, that much we know. How do we know it? Because “I don’t want to go” is the first line of the record. “Retreasion” (really spelled that way, btw) repeats the denial several times, with varying degrees of apprehension…
A lot of good things have come out of Australia: Paul Hogan, boomerangs, shrimp on the barbie, The Living End, and now Matt Roberts, just to name a few. Roberts is on an indie label half a world away, so I will assume that like me, you’re not too familiar with his music…
I really no idea what to expect from Chad Rex and the Victorstands’ debut, gravity works fire burns — a grainy, black-and-gray cover pic with two plastic cowboys facing off, a weird band name (what the hell is a “Victorstand”?)…
Picture yourself down by the bayou: barefoot, sipping on some lemonade, eating fried gator, and listening to some serious slide guitar. Imagine that you are drifting down a gentle stream on a piece of wood with Tom Sawyer, straw dangling from your mouth…
Ah, yes. This is what I find myself wishing rock sounded like all the time. Which says something about my musical tastes, I guess, because this album sounds like a long-lost gem from that fertile period of the mid ’90s when indie-rock ruled college radio…
My first experience with The Acrobrats was when I got to play guitar for them at the Toxic Summer fest; I was the Grim Reaper and played “Callout,” the second song on the album. Of course, I’m talking about Guitar Hero, a game of which a number of Boston bands were lucky enough to be a part…
Ladies and gentlemen, back from the dead, I give you…the triumphant resurrection of Elastica! Okay, so that’s not quite true; yes, on Scanners’ debut disc, Violence Is Golden, there is indeed a serious resemblance to those ’90s Brit-popsters, particularly in the sleek, sensual feel…
This is a NOFX album. You know what you’re going to get: of course, it’s going to be punk rock. It’s going to be the kind of punk rock that made you feel cool to crap in your pants or put egg yolk in your mohawk. You’re going to get power chords…
C.Y.S.L.A.B.F. reminds me of all those times I used to play on the neighborhood rope swing during sweltering summers as a kid. I would make a running dash and jump onto this ratty rope before landing in a wide, grassy ditch filled with grimy filth…
Passion. Intrigue. Supernova rock and roll? No. Well, yes, if you count CBS’s Rock Star: Supernova. In all fairness, Boston-based and female-fronted MataHari have probably just run into the wrong, grumpy, anti-pop/”punk”/alternative reviewer for their debut album…
With their self-titled debut album, the members of Love is Chemicals add a battery of art-rock to the arsenal of clean-sounding alternative music revolving around the west coast indie-rock scene. Hailing from San Francisco, the band resembles the slightly subconscious…
This Chicago band’s 2003 release, For Never and Ever, was arguably the guilty pleasure album of the year. Kill Hannah’s not a band you’re going to brag about liking, and it’s doubtful that given the chance, you’d bother to check them out live…
The Black make a legitimate bargain with their listeners: efficiency. We will not do anything flashy, they seem to say, but neither will we indulge ourselves. Don’t expect to be amazed, but don’t expect to be bored, either. We will entertain you…
Andre Williams is a soul/R&B singer that got his start in the ’50s and came pretty close to stardom, but never quite made it, despite writing a number of songs that became hits for other artists. He released a few singles of his own…
I hadn’t actually planned on reviewing this disc. It’s one of the perks of editor-dom — I have to listen to everything at least once, so I get to pick and choose the CDs I really give a crap about to review. And I hadn’t expected to be even remotely interested in this one…
Simply awesome. And I mean that not in the high school sense, but in the panoramic 70mm high-definition sense. From the opening EQ automation of “Animals Can Reason” that morphs into an R.E.M homage, then takes a left turn at 2:00 into some of the most interesting…
Sufjan Stevens just doesn’t do that much for me. There, I said it, so now I can breathe a bit easier. I feel bizarre even thinking it, to be honest, since it seems like the general consensus in Ye Magical Land of Independente Musick is that the guy’s a freakin’ genius…
Back in ’96, Merge Records had enough common sense to give a precocious young band called Spoon a chance. Marking the 10-year anniversary of Spoon’s debut, Merge is now re-releasing Telephono, re-mastered and packaged with the Soft Effects EP…
Hmm…wow. Okay, this is a little awkward. I’ve listened to Everything Wants To Be Used For What It Was Made For, the latest release from Single Frame, and I’m still not sure exactly what it is. The album toys with your musical sensibilities…
So I was driving around California, and to my surprise, there was nothing good on the radio. Believe it or not, the radio in Laguna Beach is worse than Houston’s very lackluster channel selection…
With 5 Popes, Texas drone rockers My Education wowed critics and won legions of fans with their spacey, Britrock-influenced songs. With their latest EP, the aptly titled Moody Dipper, the band hopes to gain even more exposure…
It’s difficult, if not impossible, to talk about Candye Kane’s music without first discussing her life or at least that of her persona (assuming that there is a distinct difference between them which, we’ll get to in a moment). So: purportedly born in the mean streets of East L.A. (Highland Park, specifically), Candye’s early life […]
I’ve fallen in love with a song. Hopelessly, insanely, head-over-heels in love with it, so much so that it’s a little freaky. Not that it’s anything intimate, mind you — my wife’s got nothing to worry about — but more that this one particular song is just so damn cool…
There’s a certain flea market quality to the instrumentation / configuration on Anathallo’s debut, a little bit of everything laid out in cardboard boxes. A far-from-inclusive list would still have to include glockenspiel, bleacher stomp, well-miked children’s bikes, strings…
A syrupy, crooning falsetto, Sam Mickens’s voice is clearly the centerpiece of the band, and as he goes, so goes The Dead Science. This type of vocal is extremely difficult to record, and I must say that for that, Mickens sounds great…
You can’t say CSS sucks, because they’re way ahead of you. Track number one of their self-titled album is, in fact, “CSS Suxxx.” I’m not sure if “suxx” is the same as “sucks,” but let’s say that it is. It’s the cleverest thing on the album…
The Coma Recovery puts out a solid progressive/hard rock epic with Drown That Holy End in Wine. After listening to the album, I can see a lot of potential in this band down the road. Unfortunately, the album gets mired and lost in itself…
So unlistenable as to call into question whether X was worth it in the first place. Shut up and stop pretending that your name isn’t Christine, lady.
This will make the fourth time I’ve sat down and tried to write a review for this album, with many apologies to our illustrious editors. I can honestly say the delay is in large part due to the feeling that I wasn’t giving Barbez enough of a try…
Compilation discs are difficult to review. It gets even more difficult with a disc like Music for the Masses, Volume 1, where all of the bands are a part of small but beloved local scene, I get a single song from each band to review…
