In what will inevitably go down as one of 2005’s most unlikely collaborations, Irish songstress Sinéad O’Connor teamed up with legendary Jamaican reggae producers/musicians Sly and Robbie to make Throw Down Your Arms, O’Connor’s new album and her first release since she announced she was quitting the music business for…
Go ahead — roll your eyes at Bono’s persistent messianic complex. But maybe the guy’s got good reason to think he’s bigger than Jesus. Don’t forget, Jesus has had 2000 years to firm up his reputation, while the U2 singer has only been alive since 1960. And — sorry, Pat…
Coheed and Cambria’s latest, Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Vol. 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness, is just the latest in a sci-fi soap opera played out across the New York emo-prog-metal quartet’s previous three albums. Not since Finnegans Wake had a fictional narrative so pretzeled my…
While New Orleans works to rebuild itself, one of its most legendary sons — Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton, who was among the primary architects of the city’s vibrant musical culture — has been resurrected via this astonishing seven-disc, 128-track box set. It’s a fully restored, remastered, and complete version of…
Earlier this year it was revealed that pre-Bravery, singer Sam Endicott had played in a ska band called Skabba the Hutt, and judging by the hit the New Waver’s reputation took, only the discovery of former Klan membership or a pedophilia rap sheet would have been more damning. Granted, it…
One can look back on the early Nineties Native Tongues hip-hop movement much like one would regard the Miami Heat roster these days: Y’know, ya got Shaq and Dwyane leading the way, and then a bunch of solid, sporadically sensational role players coming in for a while and then departing…
7:41 a.m. Get a wake-up call from my fourteen-year-old nephew, Jeremy, whom I’m taking to his very first Warped Tour. He asks to borrow my faded old Bad Brains T-shirt because his Bowling for Soup tee makes him “look like a noob.” 10:06 a.m. Traffic slows as we near the…
When long-feuding Hüsker Dü vets Bob Mould and Grant Hart took to a Minneapolis stage together this past October to play two of their old band’s songs during a benefit concert, mouths began drooling at the prospect of the Hüskers joining the big reunion party already attended by numerous seminal…
Nearly every song that falls in The Woods — Portland, Oregon trio Sleater-Kinney’s departure of a seventh album — creates one hell of a glorious noise. Instead of delicately stringing songs up like he has done for Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips, producer Dave Fridmann pushes everything into the…
DJ Z-Trip’s proper debut album tips a Kangol to hip-hop and electro pioneers but lacks the imagination to push those lessons forward, so it’s up to the disc’s dozen guests to generate some traction. Lyrics Born’s infectious party growl (“The Get Down”) and Chuck D’s snarling polemic (“Shock and Awe”)…
This one’s dedicated to the ladies, but you’ll never confuse bearded folk bard Sam Beam (a.k.a. Iron & Wine) for, say, R. Kelly or Usher. On this lovely six-song EP, which arrives nearly a year after his terrific sophomore full-length Our Endless Numbered Days, the former Miami International University of…
Finally, a reason to break out those checkerboard creepers that have been gathering dust in the back of your closet since the mid-Nineties third-wave ska revival! New York City’s The Toasters are honest-to-goodness American ska pioneers, and they’ve stayed true to the genre’s Jamaican R&B roots while many of their…
Man, how amazingly cool would it be to learn that an outfit named Cattle Decapitation is actually a Celine Dion tribute act? The gory reality is that this band of sinister San Diego vegetarians makes exactly the type of gruesome death-racket you’d expect: an extreme grind-core/thrash onslaught, replete with guitars…
Let’s eliminate any potential confusion right off the top: The Explosion is not the Blues Explosion. Besides, The Explosion couldn’t be more different from Jon Spencer’s garage-rock project. This Boston five-piece digs into punk rock the way it was done in Berkeley’s Gilman Street club, D.C.’s F Street club, and…
How do you like your religion served up? Raining blood and lakes of hellfire, or lambs and lions idling side by side in the green grass? Your particular holy bent may determine your taste for the gritty Abattoir Blues and the pastoral The Lyre of Orpheus, two very different offerings…
Jimmy Eat World’s hook-happy brand of emo rock has always sounded polished and accessible, yet as their fourth album proves, the Phoenix foursome hasn’t passed through the personality removal machine on their way to mainstream success. Futures features lots of splendid little touches: the delicate psych-pop detour in the middle…
Around this time last year, police detectives were examining the body of 34-year-old Elliott Smith and scouring the Los Angeles apartment the cherished singer-songwriter shared with his girlfriend, trying to determine whether or not the two mortal knife wounds to his heart were self-inflicted. Although suicide was presumed — given…
From a strictly visual standpoint, Laurie Anderson is on a simplicity kick these days. For the bulk of her nearly 30-year career, the famed New York City performance artist treated audiences to elaborate multimedia blowouts combining monologues and poetry with experimental film and video, synthetic music, modern dance, still photography,…
More Adventurous — it’s not just the title of Rilo Kiley’s terrific new album; it’s a mission statement. The Los Angeles quartet previously known for country-dusted, Saddle Creek-allied indie-pop has vastly expanded its repertoire with punchy New Wave, symphonic dream-rock, and velvety cabaret sway, while still maintaining a hold on…
“Mature” and “polished:” two words that strike fear into the hearts of hardcore fans when used to describe their favorite group’s newest efforts. Granted, it’s silly to expect long-running punk bands who aren’t named the Ramones to operate ad infinitum with the same songwriting template and a recording budget less…
No more Chinese Democracy jokes — the long promised follow-up to the Prodigy’s 1997 breakthrough The Fat of the Land has finally landed. Sadly, though, the group’s once-torrid attack has gone limp from sitting under the heat lamps for so long. Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned kicks off nicely enough with…
Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Snow Patrol, an alternative for those of you put off by Chris Martin’s floppy Muppet histrionics and questionable baby naming skills. This Scotland-via-Ireland quartet is led by Gary Lightbody, who is also known in indie circles for leading the low-key supergroup Reindeer Section, which comprises members…
