John Butler Trio regularly sells out venues with multi-thousand-person capacities in Europe, Asia, and Butler’s native Australia, but the U.S. is proving a harder nut to metaphorically crack. There’s an irony to that, since so much of the group’s success is based on the world’s fascination with roots rockers like…
I’d love to say that I have a huge grudge against Marshall Beck and his heavy metal band, Rebirth. That would make this rant a lot more straightforward, because then I would just pinch him out of the air with my chopsticks, like an annoying fly. But the thing is,…
Relationship drama doesn’t always have to play out to a complicated, overproduced soundtrack. In the case of Phoenix quartet Huskies’ debut EP, the good fight, straightforward instrumentation only intensifies the soul-baring. Front woman Natalie Espinosa sings about love, betrayal, regret and longing in a low, velvety voice, accompanied by upbeat…
Spending time with the Starlight Mints’ latest release, Drowaton, is like wandering through a carnival fun house, bouncing down rippling hallways past mind-bending mirrors to the bipolar accompaniment of lusty keyboard swirls, dagger-wielding lyrics, and sighed choruses. The foursome has been mutating conceptual pop since the ’90s, and Drowaton is…
Mike Skinner’s cockney argot and squirrelly cynicism always play well stateside — even if the U.S. audience consists of more hipsters than hip-hop heads — but back in the land of boiled meat he’s huge. Maybe that’s the problem. The woes of superstardom dominate Skinner’s third release, finding the once-affable…
Toby Keith may not really be a dick, but he plays one on CD. He generally comes across as ultra-smug, as if flaunting his popularity in the faces of intellectual elitists was half the fun of success. Yet the attitudinal aggressiveness that dominates White Trash is vastly preferable to the…
Although L.A. boy-girl duo Giant Drag say on their MySpace page that they sound like “crap,” you can rest assured that, in actuality, they don’t. Singer/guitarist Annie Hardy and drummer-synth player Micah Calabrese create brutally honest, clever little numbers with titles like “You’re Full of Shit (Check Out My Sweet…
For a band based in Baltimore, Wilderness sure is in touch with its British side. The band’s just-released Vessel States and self-titled debut — which garnered the quartet considerable acclaim from Pitchfork and its readers last year — draw as heavily from the other side of the pond as they…
In reviewing last year’s The Devil’s Rejects — the incredibly twisted gore flick written and directed by horror/metal renaissance man Rob Zombie — critic Roger Ebert ended his piece thusly: “I don’t want to get any e-mail messages from readers complaining that I gave the movie three stars, and so…
A show combining two of the most talented female singers in contemporary indie rock is like an oasis in a musical desert devoid of the second sex. Brooklyn trio Rainer Maria, fresh from the release of a new album, Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, combines slow, atmospheric instrumentals with singer Caithlin…
It’s been two and a half decades since Cocteau Twins concocted the formula, but there’s still something thrilling about a moody chanteuse backed by soaring, symphonic ambiance. Headlights is the newest avatar of the form — and while its sound soars and sighs with the best of them, the trio…
Osunlade, a veteran house music DJ hailing from Los Angeles, drops his Afro-Cuban/jazz/funk-influenced groove on downtown this weekend, thanks to the folks behind StraightNoChaser. Heading up his own label Yoruba Records, Osunlade’s been making waves in the dance-music community since the ’80s, working with musical geniuses from every genre that…
John Ringhofer, a.k.a. Half-Handed Cloud, gives the impression of being a bit of an eccentric. He turns his songs into a series of sacred psalms and then spears the sentiments with an irrepressible blend of wit and whimsy. At less than 30 minutes long, Halos & Lassos unfolds in a…
The five members of Eisley are irrefutable proof that some familial gene pools are just better than others. Consider the four siblings and one cousin who all share the name DuPree: With fanciful, elegant arrangements and luminous vocal harmonies, they elevate what would otherwise be basic dream pop into something…
1. Built to Spill, You in Reverse (Warner Bros.) 2. Calexico, Garden Ruin (Dig) (Quarter Stick) 3. Band of Horses, Everything All the Time (Sub Pop) 4. Flaming Lips, At War With the Mystics (Warner Bros.) 5. 2Mex & Life Rexall Are $martyr, Money Symbol Martyrs (Cornerstone Ras Inc.) 6…
Damn, brah, what to do on 4/20, yo? The magically puffalicious date only rolls around once a year, and any hardcore smoke aficionado uses it as an excuse for a day filled with bong rips and heavy snacking — kind of funny, since according to Snopes.com, our favorite urban-legend debunker,…
In a past life, the arena-striding Goo Goo Dolls were thought quaint by their critics and artsier alt peers: too in love with their punk heroes, too working-class sentimental, too straight rock. Well, they got the last laugh when the money rolled in. But while re-creating the success of the…
While the current British Invasion is wearing a bit — particularly when the bands are seemingly interchangeable and all apparently worship at the altar of Ian Curtis — the very clearly British foursome The Rakes don’t appear so tiresome. The London band’s ADD-influenced, punk-tinged tracks on their debut contain a…
So, Tub Ring is playing the PHiX. “Who the hell is Tub Ring,” you ask? Only Chicago’s premier experimental rawk practitioners, a band that tastefully merges the off-the-wall crush of Tomahawk with the pop appeal of Only a Lad-era Oingo Boingo. Tub Ring has also toured relentlessly with acts like…
Revolution-building is painful, thankless, hard work. Immortal Technique isn’t only a self-styled revolutionary, however, but a battle MC, so his withering critiques of politicians, capitalist pigs and cultural cowards are served through incendiary, violent language — you can usually hear the weariness and strain in his voice. He raps the…
When his sex tape went public earlier this year, it merely cemented Kid Rock’s nose-dive into that tacky level of celebrity culture where talent means less than tabloid notoriety, where people know you’re famous but can’t remember for what. Rock’s artistic standing wasn’t always so pathetic: The rap-rock jokester exploded…
In an attempt to give light to forgotten (though pivotal) singles from the heyday of the San Fran/Oakland funk/soul diaspora, Luv N’Haight launched in 1990. Fifty records later, the label shows no signs of slowing, as Bay Area Funk 2 proves. Like with many compilations of this nature, there are…
