Mathematicians believe there’s a formula for everything. Apparently, Mic Devious does, too. The Phoenix-based MC’s rhymes aren’t bad, but his song themes (how he’s the best MC and everybody else sucks, how he’s bangin’ the bomb-ass betties and don’t give a fuck about them beeyotches, how his dad abandoned him…
Calling these guys the thinking man’s heavy metal band may be a lopsided compliment, like identifying Nicole Richie as the brainier one on The Simple Life. But in a field of hedonists like Poison and Def Leppard, worldly Geoff Tate and company distinguished themselves with far weightier themes than the…
Listening to Bury Your Dead with the volume cranked to 11 leaves the sensation of getting punched in the face. Now that’s hardcore. The Connecticut five-piece’s live show will pummel you with blast beats and then, like a deranged drill instructor, order your bruised body off the floor to take…
If old-school metal fans view Soulfly as once-removed from singer/guitarist/songwriter Max Cavalera’s earlier band Sepultura, now they can view Soulfly as once-removed from itself. With its fourth album, Prophecy, released in the spring of last year, Cavalera reassembled the band with all-new members handpicked from Ill Niño and Primer 55,…
The safe money is on local heroes and special guests Authority Zero to be the night’s big crowd-pleasers; they will certainly be kicking the ass of headliners Pepper, the first punks out of Hawaii since the Waikikis. Anyone expecting a night of luau music can leave their expectations with the…
Playgroup is U.K.-based electro maven Trevor Jackson; in addition to making Romper Room punk-funk party bombs like 2002’s Playgroup (notable for including cameos from both Edwyn Collins and Shinehead), Jackson runs Output Recordings, a superhip English label that’s home to chilly post-rock acts like Fridge, and Colder. Jackson is also…
Band documentaries can be great for showing a different side of a group whose music you know well, or just filling in the personality blanks for a group you only really know in passing. For me, MxPx falls into the latter category — I was aware that they’re a long-running…
1. Bright Eyes, I’m Awake It’s Morning (Saddle Creek) 2. Bright Eyes, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn (Saddle Creek) 3. The Game, The Documentary (Aftermath) 4. Green Day, American Idiot (Warner Bros.) 5. Dresden Dolls, The Dresden Dolls (8ft Records) 6. The Killers, Hot Fuss (Island) 7. Papa Roach,…
Don’t hold the six-word band name against Fear Before the March of Flames. The Denver band is neither indie rock nor attempting to cash in on a trend. However, FBTMOF does have one clear influence: hardcore genre-definers Converge. Until 2004, Converge had been MIA for three years, so it’s not…
After a long run at Boston’s/P.I., the Valley’s preeminent hip-hop night, Blunt Club, has made a temporary move to the Rio Salado Brewery on Mill Avenue in Tempe until it finds a permanent home. On Thursday, February 3, stop by to see your usual favorites: open mic sessions early in…
Rise Against is finally headlining a tour. No longer needing the big boys there to hold its hand, the Chicago punk-rock outfit is stepping out of the shadows of mentor bands like Bad Religion. With its first major-label release, Siren Song of the Counter-Culture (DreamWorks), Rise Against has shown it…
If a band is known for its kooky costumes and outrageous theatrics, people might assume there’s something lacking in its sound. Not so with the J-pop punkers in Peelander-Z, who back their whack with some solid songs. Their origins are a closely guarded secret, but news reports from Area Z…
The recurring mental image I get while listening to High on Fire’s latest molten sludge-metal opus, Blessed Black Wings, is that of Lemmy Kilmister being strapped into that electric chair on the cover of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning, then bellowing a soul-paralyzing shriek as the searing juice jolt smokes his…
On her latest album, Ani DiFranco exorcises ghosts, feigns death, and once again opens herself up to the world. While she’s never separated the personal from the political, Knuckle Down comes across as a direct reflection of her recent personal heartbreaks. DiFranco’s divorce is the subject of a few songs,…
I love audacious titles like The Only Doo-Wop Collection You’ll Ever Need. How can you argue with such bravado? But in this case, the handle is more than just marketing-department bluster. Shout! Factory got it right: This may be the only such anthology that most of us require. Just about…
If Ike Turner’s name only draws mental images of a man violently mashing cake into Tina Turner’s face, that’s a great example of the instant karma that has beset one of the greatest guitarists in the history of R&B. Everything you’ve heard about Ike Turner may be true, but you…
It’s going to be a beautiful Apocalypse. That is, if San Diego trio Via Satellite’s new album, Cities Are Temples, is the soundtrack. A stunning ode to love in the end times, opener “Seven Winged Lions” begins with a bell-clear laptop melody that unfolds into dreamy percussion, snippets of squelch,…
With a name cribbed from a mysterious Air Force base that houses UFOs, you would expect Hangar 18 (the latest group to emerge from underground hip-hop stalwarts Def Jux) to sound like your usual X-Files nerd rap, i.e., long on consonants and light on grooves. But while its jittery, effects-laden…
Scratching, mixing, beat-juggling, all the elements of hip-hop DJing — they’re all good, but sometimes you just wanna hear a song you can dance to straight through, the way you know it, the way you loved it in the first place. And especially if you’re a dance-music recidivist, you need…
Past a certain point in their careers, musicians tend to get more serious, putting away childish obsessions with pop culture in favor of creating something of more importance (or self-importance), sometimes with mixed results. The career of Mike Park, former vocalist/saxophonist for the ’90s third-wave ska supergroup Skankin’ Pickle, certainly…
Carson Daly prefaced Citizen Cope’s network TV debut with some blubbering comparisons to Bob Dylan and John Lennon, which Cope obliterated by performing a first-rate single (“Bullet and a Target”) that sounded like neither. Clearly the new Dylan/Lennon analogy has more to do with the engineer’s cap Cope sports on…
If any indie band could be reconstituted with a properly calibrated mix of the mood, pop and rock quarks, Early Day Miners would require practically a whole shaker of mood, seasoned with a sprinkle of pop and but a dash of rock. Like the paintings of Winslow Homer, their watercolor…
