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…
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!)…
With 2004’s Summer in Abaddon, Rob Crow and Zach Smith cemented Pinback’s reputation as the most misty-eyed and oblique indie-pop band ever. Now Crow spreads his beautifully erratic wings in his gazillionth side project, the Ladies, an experiment that finds him paired with Zach Hill, the maniacal drummer and polyrhythm…
Of all the artists that the fan-approved, critically underrated Rhymesayers label has discovered in recent years, Stefon Leron “P.O.S.” Alexander may be the most intriguing. A black punk-rocker from Minneapolis who leads his city’s up-and-coming Doomtree hip-hop collective, P.O.S. (which stands for “Product of Society,” “Pissed-Off Stef” and many other…
Deadboy & the Elephantmen’s crime isn’t that the group sounds too much like the White Stripes. It’s that the coed garage duo doesn’t sound enough like the White Stripes. It would be a thousand times more tolerable to listen to a decent, inspired ripoff of Jack and Meg than We…
In the documentary No Direction Home, Bob Dylan comes off as uncaring and clueless about the effect America was having on him and the reciprocal effect he was having on it. Deceiver or dumb fuck? It was hard to tell. Chris Adolf, the core of the indie-pop collective known as…
The increasing homogeneity of American culture hasn’t completely wiped out unique characteristics of regional music scenes: Austin, Atlanta and even Denver still retain their sonic identities to a significant degree. Still, practically every city large enough to support a college has a band that plays the same sort of bouncy…
