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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Mclusky The Difference Between You And Me Is That I'm Not On Fire Too Pure By: Eric Greenwood My, how we've toned down since Mclusky Do Dallas. Andy Falkous' full-throttle shriek has morphed into a far more digestible, dare I say, singing voice? The ghost of The Jesus Lizard is alive and well in the […]

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Junior Boys Last Exit Kin By: Eric Greenwood Invariably, when you invoke synthpop in any context the discussion turns retro, but with a record like Last Exit by the Canadian trio, Junior Boys, one can look to the future without seeming too out of touch. The synths are glassy and oblique, underscored by beats broken […]

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