Music

Bluegrass maestro Del McCoury has bravely gone where few bluegrass bands have gone before, playing rock and jam-band venues, thereby introducing his high, lonesome sound to a new generation of listeners. On most of his albums, McCoury successfully straddles the divide between progressive and traditional music. The Promised Land, a…

Jerry Joseph helms the Jackmorons, a Portland, Oregon outfit that specializes in resolute Americana anthems propelled by passion and purpose. Those strengths are certainly evident here, and though Joseph has forfeited individual billing, his dark, tempestuous perspective still prevails. The arrangements have been altered this time around, given denser textures…

Roger O’Donnell packs some powerful credentials, given his stints as keyboardist for erstwhile Eighties outfits such as the Psychedelic Furs, the Thompson Twins, and, most recently, the Cure. However, on his second solo album, O’Donnell’s synthesized doodling finds him abandoning the oldies and tapping into more celestial strata. Mostly it…

Like thoroughbred horses, industrial music has only a handful of forebears, so when the Big Three — Skinny Puppy, Ministry, and Front Line Assembly — seemed to be calling it quits or, at the very least, falling off around 1995, the future looked even darker than normal for the genre’s…

Anthony Hamilton wants to tell you something. “God is more important than I am in my life, more important than my wife, my kids, my family, and my friends. God centers me.” So there it is. Hamilton wants to spread the Word of God. The 35-year-old singer readily admits, “He…

Nestled in the Wynwood Art District, Cornerstone, a gallery cum performance venue, has been a host to local artists and performers since it opened one year ago in this neighborhood-in-the-making. There’s no Website, just word of mouth. Seekers have to look carefully for Cornerstone amid the empty warehouses and vacant…

My name’s Chris, last name Nelson. You wanna wear it?” You had to give the guy credit for the creative pick-up line. Some of his other stellar hooks: “You need another drink? I need another drink. I’m an alcoholic.” And who could forget the classic, “You ready to have all…

In 2005 Sonic Youth’s 1988 masterpiece Daydream Nation was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Register, an institution that has recognized just about every important aural document, from Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue to the first official transatlantic telephone conversation. It is a distinction far cooler than a…

Ralph Stanley’s high, lonesome tenor has defined the art of bluegrass singing for more than 55 years, and although his top end is a bit rough these days, it adds authenticity to the voice of a man who has lived the hard life he sings about. The Carter Family cut…

What’s this? Frank Black, the mercurial leader of the Pixies, one of the most brooding and foreboding bands from the postpunk era, sounding enthusiastic? Soaking up the vibe of an all-star musical assemblage — Steve Cropper, Spooner Oldham, Buddy Miller, The Band’s Levon Helm, Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson, Bad Company’s…

“5 Year Eve,” the centerpiece of the collaboration between California’s Anticon beatsmith Alias and New York chanteuse Rona “Tarsier” Rapadas, features a string section gliding over crunchy, oddly patterned beats while a female voice waxes raspy about half-decades. And so Brookland/Oaklyn reinforces that hip-hop-inflected IDM beats paired with the intimacy…

Earlier this year, in a departure from its usual practice of signing Metalpalooza bait such as High on Fire and Nile, record label Relapse picked up a few instrumental-only bands, the most prized of which is semilegendary progger Don Caballero, whose members are free on waivers from Touch and Go…

Many bands revel in their roots, but few amble as close to the heartland as the Missouri-based Bottle Rockets. Their no-frills approach is tough and tenacious, reflecting an underdog attitude that tends to downplay resignation in favor of an occasional upward glance. Zoysia, their eighth studio set, provides the ideal…