Diving Fits formed when Britt Daniel of Spoon and Dan Boeckner formerly of Wolf Parade got together with their friend Sam Brown of New Bomb Turks. The music that came out of that union was a kind of power pop infused with a strong electronic undercurrent, like something that could…
VS, which stands for Vibration Sequence (originally EVS, the “E” standing for “Eternal”), was formed in 2009 by Cole Hopfenspirger and Tom Moore, who met while working at the Cheesecake Factory. Both started in the hardcore scene but had left that world before meeting each other. They were familiar with…
In the vein of the influential Switched On series pioneered by Wendy Carlos, Mike Buckley of Nightshark recorded this timely album. Much as Carlos famously did with Bach, using only a Micromoog and a vocoder, Buckley performs synthesizer interpretations of classic Christmas songs that almost have to be heard to…
Although in the minds of many, Dethklok represents the unlikely foray of death metal into the mainstream, it was pioneers like Maryland’s Dying Fetus that did the legwork in establishing and refining the art form. Beginning in 1991, Dying Fetus fused technical death metal with grindcore, and co-founder and singer/guitarist…
Even though Divine Fits got started earlier this year, its members are hardly unknown figures: Britt Daniel started the experimental pop group Spoon in Austin in the early ’90s; Dan Boeckner played guitar and sang in the like-minded and popular Wolf Parade; and drummer Sam Brown came to this project…
Most people these days probably know Nathaniel Rateliff best as an acclaimed singer-songwriter with an album out on Rounder Records who’s toured and shared bills locally with Mumford & Sons. Before he embarked on a successful solo career, though, he used to front a band called Born in the Flood,…
At the end of October, Killing Joke released its fifteenth album, MMXII. Given the impending doom that supposedly awaits us at the end of next week, it’s hard to imagine a more perfect time to release a record that explores themes of such a looming eschatological event. In 1982, Killing…
LAMB OF GOD @ FILLMORE AUDITORIUM |12/10/12 The high point of Lamb of God’s set came somewhere around the mid-point, when, after projecting pictures of the band’s fans in the military on the twin screens flanking drummer Chris Adler, Randy Blythe dedicated “Now You’ve Got Something to Die For” to…
NOFX @ FILLMORE AUDITORIUM |12/7/12 The funniest (and definitely the wrongest) moment in NOFX’s show last night at the Fillmore came when Fat Mike prefaced “Arming the Proletariat With Potato Guns” by saying, “This is kind of a racist song, but it’s okay if you’re racist toward the people in…
Lamb of God started in 1990 as an instrumental metal band called Burn the Priest. But it wasn’t until 1995, after recording a few demos and playing countless house parties, that the band recruited singer Randy Blythe and started developing into the band you would recognize today as Lamb of…
This fourth EP from Monroe Monroe is a more refined effort than previous offerings, both sonically and in terms of the songwriting. On “Everything You Give,” the descending-guitar-riff intro and the way it then winds through the song is reminiscent of Comsat Angels’ melancholic compositions, only infused with more upbeat…
Lamb of God began as an instrumental band called Burn the Priest in 1990, when its founding members were in college in Richmond, Virginia. In the mid-’90s, after releasing a series of demos, Burn the Priest recruited singer Randy Blythe, changing the band’s name in time for its first full-length…
There’s something about Todd Snider’s rambling, incisive, irreverent lyrics that have struck a chord with a wide audience. A Portland native, Snider eventually made his way to Memphis, where he often played a bar called the Daily Planet — hence the name of his 1994 debut full-length, Songs for the…
David Jacoby has been performing as Whitecatpink since August 2007. Based in Fort Collins, he makes the occasional foray to Denver to inject a little theater and weirdness into the scene. Part performance art, part electro-lounge pop, Whitecatpink — due this Saturday, December 8, at 7th Circle (2935 West Seventh…
NOFX was started in Los Angeles in 1983 by Michael “Fat Mike” Burkett and Eric Melvin. The band was born of the same West Coast scene that produced some of the most important punk bands of all time, from Black Flag and the Circle Jerks to the Minutemen and the…
Kreayshawn (aka Natassia Zolot) got a video camera at age ten and started making and editing her own videos for several years before formally trying her hand at music. Although she’s a high-school dropout, Kreayshawn landed a scholarship to study film at the Berkeley Digital Film Institute. During that time,…
Formed nearly a decade ago in Austin, Texas, the Sword, with its sludgy guitar work and the fantastical themes of its lyrics, is often assigned the stoner rock designation, and understandably so. But while the band certainly bears the clear influence of bands like Black Sabbath, Sleep and Led Zeppelin,…
Thee Dang Dangs got going this past summer when Broox Pulford of Wombmates, Shawn Butzin and Ray Koren of Dead Rollers and Rebecca Williams of Call Me Dolly decided to start a new band, united by a mutual love of rock that’s still rough around the edges. The outfit has…
The Uncertain Sea somehow managed to bring together a touch of math rock or prog with splintery post-punk and ’90s emo and made it compelling — think something like Mission of Burma with a country bent, written by people who grew up hearing stuff like Sunny Day Real Estate with…
Thee Dang Dangs got going this past summer when Broox Pulford of Wombmates, Shawn Butzin and Ray Koren of Dead Rollers and Rebecca Williams of Call Me Dolly decided to start a new band, united by a mutual love of rock that’s still rough around the edges. The outfit has…
Like a harder version of early Skinny Puppy, the songs on Built Better by Betrayal, the latest release from Invisible ASPS, bear out the title well. If these tunes weren’t born out of anger and bitterness and a desire to purge those feelings, it would be surprising, because even the…
Kreayshawn (aka Natassia Zolot) got a video camera at age ten and started making and editing her own videos for several years before formally trying her hand at music. Although she’s a high school dropout, Kreayshawn landed a scholarship to study film at the Berkeley Digital Film Institute. During that…
