OK Go is back with a sophomore release that puts its brilliant debut to shame. Offering intelligent lyrics, infectious melodies and a bratty Brit-pop swagger borrowed as much from Let It Bleed as from Blur, Oh No turns loose thirteen party anthems that never sacrifice kick for cleverness. Swedish über-producer…

The rock duo is the new quartet. The White Stripes, the Dresden Dolls, the Black Keys and many more have proven that two people with the right raw mixture of talent, originality and balls can rawk far harder than bands twice their size. North Carolina’s Des Ark is rock’s latest…

There’s something for everyone in Seattle’s Kinski — assuming everyone likes freaked-out, molar-cracking instrumental guitar rock. Lucy Atkinson, Matthew Reid-Schwartz, Barrett Wilke and Chris Martin combine elements of space rock, kraut rock, avant rock, psych rock and prog rock — along with good, old-fashioned hard rock — into intricate compositions…

Look out, neo-wavers, there’s a new K in town. Put aside that Killers album, shelve the Kasabian CD and prepare to embrace Koufax. The Midwestern quintet has continued to evolve since its 1999 debut, and its third full-length, Hard Times Are in Fashion, stands firmly at the crossroads of neo-wave…

For Sufjan Stevens, everything goes back to Bigfoot. As a young boy, Stevens was asked to do an oral report on Oregon for a social studies class. While doing his research, he came across a book on the frightening furry phenomenon and decided to incorporate it into his assignment. When…

Gatsbys American Dream’s last album was based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and its latest, Volcano, is also a concept album. With references to Lord of the Flies and a story told from the point of view of Mount Vesuvius, it might seem more dull than your eighth-grade summer reading…

The Reverend Adam F. Glasseye looks at the Old American West through the glass eyes of shady sailors and traveling salesmen. The Right Reverend — formerly of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club — fills his snake oil Chautauqua with dark visions, bizarre instruments and stories of salvation and damnation. Honored in…

If you didn’t cry a little back there,” says Lisa Gedgaudas, “there’s something wrong with you.” Gedgaudas’s boyfriend, Born in the Flood frontman Nathaniel Rateliff, has just finished an especially moving set at the Acoma Center. As he steps off the stage, his own tears are nearly indistinguishable from the…

All the best cowboys have tears in their eyes. With a sleepy nod to the Cowboy Junkies and other early-’90s indie folk rockers, Chicago’s Consafos makes Robitussin rock that seems about to collapse under the weight of its own beauty. Over the course of one EP and one full-length, these…

If it’s pioneering, trailblazing, armed audio warfare you’re after, Meat Beat Manifesto is your answer. From 1989’s Storm the Studio — a tour de force of hip-hop, dub, industrial dance noise — to this year’s At the Center, a blend of electronica and jazzy live instrumentation (including a shocking amount…

I’m disappointingly normal,” Craig Finn insists. “I watch a lot of baseball. I’m a huge Twins fan. I listen to music, hang out with my wife, drink beer, whatever. It’s very average-American.” The Hold Steady frontman may indeed be normal, but his band is anything but. In fact, the New…

Some plants thrive in the shadows. Arlo Guthrie should know. Although he’s never reached his father’s iconic status, he has nonetheless enjoyed a long, successful career as a songwriter, bard and philanthropist in his own right, starting with his first public performance at age thirteen. Seven years later, his well-timed…

Once upon a time, sworn fealty to the Cure meant absolute disdain for AC/DC — and vice versa. Morrissey was Bluto to Axl Rose’s Popeye. Back then, It Dies Today wouldn’t have had an audience. But today, thanks to labels like Level-Plane and Trustkill, kids in black-framed glasses rub shoulders…

In a world where indie rock has become the Next Big Thing and marketing plans exist before the music, Pinback’s sincerity is a joy. Zach Smith and Rob Crow have no identifiable image, no signature wardrobes or hairstyles, and they’ve created three albums of such peculiar pop that no major-label…

Here’s a recipe for disaster: Hide a diverse bunch of well-known musicians (and one comic-book illustrator) behind a goofy cartoon facade while they produce slightly schizophrenic pop. A hokey concept, yes, but against all odds, the Gorillaz’ debut was a superbly boundary-less hodgepodge of breakbeats, indie pop and garage rock…

Stoned, stumped and stoked: just some of the feelings you can expect when you hear Open Hand. Bringing together elements of stoner and prog metal, acid biker rock, hardcore and punk, these rockers without borders leave you vainly groping for the right label. On the band’s sophomore Trustkill release, You…

Jim Thirlwell’s musical output is as unpredictable as his identity. With more aliases than Dick Cheney has conflicts of interest, he has recorded thrash, industrial, dance pop and cartoon swing. His latest Foetus record is another diverse collection. The opener, “(Not Adam),” is a dance-floor hit, complete with a sing-along…

Matt Ward has made a career of defying categorization, and this year’s Transistor Radio is no exception. At its heart is a love for lo-fi indie pop as well as its progenitors — third-album-era Velvet Underground, Brian Wilson (whose classic “You Still Believe in Me” gets a baroque instrumental treatment…

Jennifer Gentle is not the girl next door. With one ear pressed to Donovan’s Greatest Hits and the other to Elephant 6, she produces giddy, psychedelic pop that comes from a parallel universe in which the Partridge Family dropped acid and joined the circus. Disappointingly, the girl next door never…

It’s nothing you haven’t heard before, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hear it. Melodic, atmospheric and decidedly unhip, Kite Operations mines the land previously trod by countless shoegazers before it and extracts a shimmering, eardrum-shattering ore of blissful indie pop. Opening with “A Wonder” — a (mostly) straightahead indie…

If you rely on your eyes, you might not find the Nightingale house. In a neighborhood that’s rapidly becoming gentrified, where Novas on cinderblocks sit next to Volvo wagons and classic bungalows languish in the shadows of sterile new condos, the little white cottage is almost lost. But seek it…

In 1994, the Wonder Stuff broke up. Now, twelve years after the act’s last album, the UK pop-rockers have released Escape From Rubbish Island, a sturdy, energetic set of radio-friendly alt-pop. Original members/founders Miles Hunt and Malcolm Treece recruited a new rhythm section and set out to prove their enduring…