It’s extremely difficult to make music that’s genuinely, truly scary. In fact, I’d postulate that it’s harder to make frightening, menacing music that’s effective and well-done than it is to make, say, insanely catchy, cheery pop music…
The whole practice-makes-perfect adage isn’t always true, at least not when it comes to music. There are plenty of bands out there that come out of the gate, guns blazing and with fire in their eyes, and then after they’ve made their name somewhat…
After making my way a handful of times through Gringo Star’s latest hazy, earthy, rambling full-length, Count Yer Lucky Stars, I was struck by the way in which the band grabs hold of both rough-edged ’60s pop and psychedelia…
For most of the band’s debut EP, You’re Gonna Get Me, it feels like A Sundae Drive just rolls hazily along, serene smiles across the band members’ faces as the music unwinds itself to whatever…
Some days, you just need to forget; well, I do, at least. Lately I’ve been watching the economy and our political arena go batshit crazy almost simultaneously, while keeping a constant eye on the borrowed-from-Hell temperatures…
With Walls, Brisbane duo An Horse hit all the absolutely-right drone-rock notes, barreling along purposefully and intently through a full pile of awesomely catchy, fast-strummed indie-rock tunes…
For some, hip-hop excellence still begins with geographical location, which is then solidified by earning honors like “XXL Freshman” or “Jay-Z co-signee.” So what are we to make of Wichita, Kansas, hip-hop? The words barely make sense when compared to more iconic Kansas-centric phrases like “Kansas barbeque”…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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”…
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…
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…
Mississippi consisted of two worlds in the 1960s (and, many would say, still today): the free-to-do-as-they-please whites, be they rich, poor, or in-between, and blacks struggling against centuries of bigotry…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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?…
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…
Justice Tirapelli-Jamail and Cory Sinclair of The Manichean don’t ever, ever do things halfway, apparently. At least, that’s the feeling I get after drifting my way through the band’s latest release, Sakura. It was originally intended to be a quick little tide-you-over EP…
