The Cardigans Long Gone Before Daylight Stockholm/Koch By: Eric Greenwood After the inexplicably lukewarm reception to The Cardigans' 1998 detour into dark, atmospheric trip-hop the band all but disappeared. Vocalist Nina Persson released the country-tinged collaboration with her husband, ex-Shudder To Think guitarist, Nathan Larson, and Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, entitled, A Camp, while the rest […]

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Eleni Mandell Afternoon Zedtone By: Eric Greenwood Chances are you've never heard of Eleni Mandell, and I'm recommending that you change that as soon as possible. She may be a singer/songwriter from L.A., but don't hold that against her. She has an impressive pedigree of collaborators and influences, ranging from Tom Waits to Victoria Williams […]

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The Starvations Get Well Soon GSL By: Eric Greenwood The Starvations may hail from plasticine L.A., but they better represent its seedy underbelly than the phony blond sunshine that colors your prejudice. For six years the band has churned out its anachronistic punk rooted in blues and bar rock angst, producing only two full-lengths and […]

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Fletcher Friends Don't Speak Esperanza Plantation By: Eric Greenwood Wise beyond its teenage years, Jackson, Mississippi's Fletcher produces a challenging set of gut-wrenching rock played with astute technical precision and a penchant for off-kilter time signatures and unexpected stops and starts. The band goes out of its way to distance itself from all that is […]

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Pretty Girls Make Graves The New Romance Matador By: Eric Greenwood The opening riff of "Something Bigger, Something Brighter" off the Phil Ek-produced The New Romance recalls the gothic reverberation of Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead", even down to the ominous drumstick click against the side of the snare. When the guitars kick in and Andrea […]

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The 101 The 101 The Self-Starter Foundation By: Michael Jones Eric Richter possesses one of my favorite voices in modern music and applies said voice to wildly differing projects: Richter's first band, Christie Front Drive, is often heralded as one of the best emo bands that ever existed (editor's note: the irony of the oxymoronic […]

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The Hives Tyrannosaurus Hives Interscope By: Eric Greenwood Overlooking the questionable fashion sense and the awful cartoon cover art, Tyrannosaurus Hives moves Sweden's The Hives above and beyond the throwback garage rock revivalism that threatens to suck them into utter obsolescence the very moment the fad wanes, even though, to their credit, The Hives had […]

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