Anaheim, California, seems an unlikely place for one of the country’s better garage-rock revival bands to call home. Fortunately, the saccharine sweetness of Disneyland — the burg’s biggest attraction — hasn’t permeated the Willowz’ earnest brand of youthfully exuberant, stripped-down garage punk. Formed in 2002, when its members were still…
The trouble with an act like the Chromatics is that they’re really cool. It’s intimidating, really: You can’t listen to Nite, their newest Troubleman release, without second-guessing the hipness of the rest of your record collection. Hailing from Seattle (the land of the too-cool- for-school mindset), the act is an…
Like pimply, overweight teenagers, the four Welsh boys of Bullet for My Valentine wave their Iron Maiden fan-club cards proudly as they thumb their noses at the whine-and-grind school of metalcore popularized by their Trustkill labelmates. This potent metallic monster balances dewy-eyed romanticism and slit-eyed cynicism as well as it…
While some fans of the now-defunct Phish do not bubble as wildly for the latest musical spawn of Trey Anastasio, there appears to be no shortage of appreciative minnows hatching in his ongoing musical pool. Touring in support of his latest effort, Bar 17, Anastasio pulls into the Fox for…
Politically charged punk rock has always been an iffy thing to take on. Bands start off with a hopeful anarchistic stance and, if able to survive for longer than a couple of small tours, inevitably end up at that music-industry fork in the road. It’s usually a question of going…
Once upon a time, Evanescence’s Amy Lee was seen as a Christian rocker — at least until she figured out it would be more profitable to come across as a secular rocker with a spiritual side. Now, however, she’s transformed herself into the Celine Dion of gloom. Throughout The Open…
Calvin Johnson has never made a hit single, and unless “down” suddenly becomes “up,” “wrong” changes to “right” and “injustice” and “justice” swap meanings, he never will — despite the slew of music he’s created by himself or as part of Beat Happening, Dub Narcotic Sound System or the Halo…
Formed in 2003 by the members of Rivers Run Dry, To Be Eaten — which will play one of its last shows ever this Friday, October 20, at the Marquis Theater, with Cephalic Carnage, Elucidarius and AinMatter — has produced some of Denver’s most jarring and devastatingly intense metal. Evoking…
Wicked!” exclaims Richard Winn as he stands on the Seattle Center’s Broad Street Lawn during Bumbershoot, expressing appreciation for the French band Nouvelle Vague. “That’s weird — I got goosebumps on that one.” He then pulls up the sleeve of his blue sweat jacket to prove it. The bubbly 42-year-old…
If Focus on the Family’s James Dobson ever becomes dictator of these United States, ownership of The Body The Blood The Machine, the latest CD by the Portland, Oregon-based Thermals, will be punishable by days on the rack or weeks of “re-education lessons” — whichever is more painful. That’s because…
Erika Wennerstrom, a native of Dayton, Ohio, speaks with a slight country drawl. Her voice has a homespun grittiness that rumbles softly, like worn-out tires on a dusty dirt road. When she sings, however, she summons a deep-throated hum that, when provoked, lunges into a bellyache howl. Her Cincinnati-based band,…
New Found Glory has always suffered critically from guilt by association with a lot of pop-punk bands that really had no business making music. Sum 41, A Simple Plan, Good Charlotte — these bands will most likely become footnotes to footnotes in music history. But frontman Jordan Pundik and company…
Outside of perhaps the Hold Steady — which shares a proclivity for Bruce Springsteen — nobody plays straight-up rock these days as convincingly as Lucero. Led by Ben Nichols’s gravelly croak, Lucero has finally produced the definitive rock record it’s been edging closer to since leaving behind the alt-country leanings…
In flicks such as Crash and Hustle & Flow, aspiring thespian Chris Bridges is convincing when called upon to act grim or edgy. If only he could translate such emotions to CD. Luda’s latest Release suggests that he’s got more range on the screen than on disc. The innate humor…
Jeffrey Lewis could be Jonathon Richman’s angry little brother. He crams songs with twice as many words as they should have and undermines himself as the ultimate anti-rock star; self-effacing, he airs every embarrassing, parenthetical thought as a preemptive strike against himself. Anything you can criticize, he’s already noticed with…
The Album Leaf’s best effort, Seal Beach, distinguished itself in two ways: The songs were all instrumentals, and the record was only an EP. On his subsequent full-length releases, the Album Leaf’s Jimmy LaValle further cultivated an introspective, expansive style of tranquil electronica, but the discs’ longer running times and…
Jimmy Stofer has heard a lot of applause lately thanks to his gig as touring bassist for the Fray. When he’s not thumping for his newly flush employers, however, he’s just another local musician trying to get his band off the ground. Mirror E.P. , the latest from Dualistics, a…
Mercy, Planes Mistaken for Stars’ sixth release in as many years and its debut on the Abacus imprint, is every bit as caustic and brooding as anything the act has ever done — only more primal, focused and terrifyingly intense. Thanks to the stripped-down production of Matt Bayles, the serrated…
Audioslave, Revelations (Epic/Interscope). Three albums on, Audioslave is a tighter and more cohesive unit, but one that produces only pedestrian power rock. Guitar wizard Tom Morello barely cuts loose, but those moments showcase Audioslave’s still-untapped potential. Though a few creative songs are mixed with solid reminders of singer Chris Cornell’s…
In the mid-’90s, it seemed like there were armies of woman-fronted, shoegaze-inflected outfits conquering the pop charts. The Sundays, the Cranberries and the forgettable Frente! all spiked the fuzzy dreaminess of My Bloody Valentine and the Cocteau Twins with pop hooks that made them irresistible to an audience burned out…
When the dance-punk wave hit a few years back, synthesizer-heavy acts like Adult. were suddenly swimming in the same waters as guitar-based bands like the Rapture and Death From Above 1979. It was easy for trendy DJs to follow up “House of Jealous Lovers” with a quirky Adult. electro-laden number…
The Killers’ new album, Sam’s Town, features a host of guitars that sound like Nissan Sentra engines and a desperately confused drummer caught between John Bonham bonzai bluster and Meg White’s dumbstruck austerity. But the thing we’re gonna focus on with regard to the record unfortunately not called Sam’s Ass…
