This review is not an indictment of Il Divo, despite the crimes its members have committed against the human eardrum. Likewise, it isn’t intended to assail either American Idol’s Simon Cowell, the professional prick who assembled this pop-operatic boy band, or the material that makes up Ancora — including a…
How can an Elliott Smith tribute album go wrong? The guy was practically deified before his apparent suicide in 2003, and the exaltation has only continued since. But such an homage presents a dilemma: Adding too much of a new twist to Smith’s songs might seem arrogant or inappropriate, while…
Justin Gitlin, who goes by CacheFlowe, is a laptopper with a difference. He’s neither a devoted dance-music maven in thrall to four-on-the-floor beats nor a pure abstractionist allergic to anything resembling a hook. Indeed, he seems open to all manner of sounds, and on Automate Everything, he combines them in…
Sleep pumped through an atomizer. A vast battlefield littered with phoenix feathers and dying warrior elephants. Cough syrup used as embalming fluid and flushed through the collapsed blood vessels of Western ontology. Lagoons full of discarded time. A fossilized spinal column, cervical to coccyx, from a human-Yeti love child. Genealogies…
Ahleuchatistas, What You Will (Cuneiform Records). Technically, Ahleuchatistas makes instrumental rock — but that prosaic description does no justice to the intense, intelligent brand of aural freakiness this North Carolina trio dishes out. Cuts such as “Remember Rumsfeld at Abu Ghraib” feature tricky time signatures, adventurous arrangements and stunningly precise…
Sure, sure, it’s a big concert and all, but what the people really want to know is: Why did Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora and Heather “Be Thy Name” Locklear split up? Well, Star magazine suggests that Locklear got her mitts on a “steamy, X-rated e-mail” to Sambora from Stephanie…
Wasn’t Josh Gracin that country-singing Marine from American Idol’s second season? How’d that jarhead land himself a recording contract? Well, actually, it’s a lot easier to understand than you might think: While Simon, Randy and the eternally narcotized Paula have never really understood the relevance of country music to Middle…
Matt Pond PA has always existed on the periphery of popularity. With nine releases over the past eight years, the Brooklyn-based chamber-pop outfit has not wanted for material. But there has always been an introverted quality to its music — a sense that the ensemble is playing through a thick…
Low has the sort of soundtrack quality that’s quietly tucked into expansive landscape shots and dwindling moments of self-realization. Every album is a score to some unwritten indie flick that centers on a smart, repressed antagonist and the vain pursuit of a more perfect life. The Duluth, Minnesota, threesome –…
Seattle’s rap scene will forever be overshadowed by that towering titan of the mike, Sir Mix-a-Lot. Okay, maybe not so much. But the sleety city on Puget Sound hasn’t been well known for its output of hip-hop — that is, not until the Oldominion crew sprouted amid the town’s grunge…
Listening to Peregrine, the Appleseed Cast’s forthcoming album, you’d never know that the group got its start as an emo outfit named December’s Tragic Drive in Lawrence, Kansas, during the late ’90s. While peers such as the Get Up Kids have taken their adolescent emoting into alt-country territory, the Appleseed…
The men of the Sword are so devoted to vintage werewolf-rock touchstones that it’s hard to know whether they’re celebrating the style or satirizing it. After all, Austinites J.D. Cronise, Kyle Shutt, Bryan Richie and Trivett Wingo describe themselves using classic Dungeons & Dragons-style verbiage (“Before forging the blade, the…
Nada Surf
“If you don’t like the ‘scene,'” proclaims Nick Houde of Transistor Radio Sound, “then create something you do like. It’s really that easy!” And he means it. Transistor Radio Sound is a collective that revolves around Houde and Kara Jorge, and to them, “do it yourself” is more than a…
Once a member of Crazy Town (the one-hit wonder responsible for the earworm that was “Butterfly”), Adam Goldstein, aka DJ AM, has reinvented himself as the most in-demand DJ among Hollywood’s A-list. Demi Moore, Ben Stiller, Tobey Maguire, Jessica Simpson and Madonna have all sought him out for their private…
B-52 Billiards dropped a bomb on its employees last week when it announced that the club at 1920 Market Street would be closing for good as of this past Monday. One bartender complained to Club Scout that he was given about 48 hours’ notice that his mixology job was being…
In “Everything Is Alright,” the latest single from Motion City Soundtrack, vocalist/guitarist Justin Pierre declares, “I’m through with these pills that make me sit still” — and as he talks about the inspiration behind that line, it’s clear he isn’t on a prescription to quiet his tongue, either. “I’m not…
Nothing about Japan Implosion is what it seems. First of all, Implosion has absolutely nothing to do with Japan: It’s the latest magazine dedicated to documenting Denver’s formidable music, art and cultural communities. And while you can print a PDF of Implosion — whose inaugural issue features profiles on the…
Armed with a terrific new album, Pandelirium, Nashville’s Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers are bringing their greasy, Southern-fried combo of blues, punk, polka and old-school rockabilly — presented live, like a Pentecostal tent revival meets Theater of the Absurd — back to town. We caught up with Shack*Shakers frontman/ringleader Colonel J.D. Wilkes,…
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Soldiers are about to release their debut CD, So Many Musicians to Kill, after struggling through nine years together. Thing is, they’re barely in their twenties. The Eugene, Oregon-based rockers got together in seventh grade — they named their band after a tour by legendary Australian…
All hail R.E.M.! They were the jingle-jangle morning of indie rock, and their latest albums areŠnot bad for a bunch of old farts. For all the great tunes, we have held our tongues in regard to goofy frontman Michael Stipe. But no longer. For releasing yet another of those tiresome…
Whatever People Say I Am, That¹s What I¹m Not
U.K. music scribes have always been addicted to hype — but their ballyhooing of Arctic Monkeys is over the top even by their standards. The group couldn’t live up to their praise if it featured Jesus on vocals and Mohammed on guitar. (Please, no one draw a cartoon of this!)…
