The Maccabees certainly didn’t invent their sound. The nervous rush of jerky, angular guitar bursts, syncopated rhythms, down-stroked melancholia, and harmonized vocal melodies can be found in any number of other bands’ playbooks, namely The Futureheads’ (by way of XTC and Gang of Four). It’s not The Maccabees’ originality, or lack thereof, for which they […]

[Read more →]

Naming your band after something as transient as youth comes back to bite you if you try to stick around too long. And The Beastie Boys have certainly pushed the limits of absurdity, carrying their moniker into their respective 40’s. It’s beyond ridiculous when you think that these guys came out of the box flanked […]

[Read more →]

If anything, Ryan Adams knows how to alienate everyone around him. He’s a petulant and defensive interviewee, a humorless spoiled brat on stage, and an indulgent virtuoso on record. It’s amazing anyone even pays attention to him anymore. I suppose his antics work to keep his name in print, but none of it helps his […]

[Read more →]

To knick a phrase the NME misused with Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age is sort of a Guns N’ Roses it’s ok to like. Indie fetishists have a soft spot for Josh Homme’s muscular, psychedelic metal riffage, but so do crass Papa Roach fans. It’s a difficult line to straddle, where the wrong move […]

[Read more →]

This is the second release in The Social Registry’s limited 7″ Social Club. Sian Alice Group’s “Nightbird” is an expansive pop experiment, interweaving ethereal vocals with a lush and layered musical backdrop. Sian Ahern’s voice is precariously poised on the edge of seductive otherworldliness and shadowy allure. The music has an amorphous vagueness to it […]

[Read more →]

The music of Joy Division, while not as overtly plagiarized as too many lazy writers carelessly assert, certainly serves as a template for Interpol’s immobile sense of dramatic enterprise. From the moment Interpol arrived on the scene in 2002, the band came fully equipped with its image and sound intact. Its presentation was so thoroughly […]

[Read more →]

Shellac of North America is a minimalist rock trio that knows what its strengths are and it plays to them with few, if any, missteps. This band is unconcerned with fame or record sales or any of the bullshit that typically accompanies the fanfare of a new release, as its self-imposed seven-year hiatus unceremoniously attests. […]

[Read more →]