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(11/01/10 6:00am)
Despite consisting of one of the music industry's consistently
successful hip-hop/pop production teams, the Neptunes, N.E.R.D.'s
group work has never topped the charts. Ten years and three studio
albums have not given the trio of Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo and
Shay Haley much radio play. In fact, the highest chart position of
any of their songs came in 2004 with ""She Wants To Move"" hitting
fifth on the U.K. singles chart. While N.E.R.D.'s albums have been
more successful than their singles (with In Search Of…
(2002) and Fly or Die (2004) both reaching gold status)
the three Grammys and two Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Awards sitting
on a shelf in the Neptunes' studio are better indicators of the
group's excellent production and arrangement skills.
(10/27/10 6:00am)
Bobby Wegner and Heather Sawyer have spent the last few years
releasing hot 7'' records like they owe it to the world. The Hussy
rolled up renegade anthems of youthful indulgence into
reverb-coated splinters of garage rock without pretense. But even
those candy-coated anarchist refrains sounded like they were
picking away at something bigger, and we see a better picture of
the Hussy's sculpture on their first full-length release,
Cement Tomb Mind Control.
(10/24/10 6:00am)
Kylesa is a blossoming example of a metal band with crossover
appeal. This appeal stems from Kylesa's stylistic dexterity, a
quality that became fully apparent in the success of their last
album, Static Tensions, a delicious slab of metal that
contained equal parts punk, hardcore and sludge. It was a
dominating release that solidified Kylesa's place amongst the metal
elites. Much of Spiral Shadow continues in the vein of its
predecessor, but it also expands their sonic diversity to encompass
even more of the distant fringes of the genre, and the overall
effect is a mixed bag.
(10/20/10 6:00am)
For the past several months, the Humanities building's exterior has
been filled with young-looking skateboarders in tight, pre-ripped
jeans. They are often dirty and most of them smell like a pungent
mixture of lice and failure. But just who exactly are these
skateboarder ""hooligans?"" I was able to catch up with the
supposed leader of the group, a Madison native and high school
senior named Travis Michaels.
(10/14/10 6:00am)
With jangly guitar hooks and straight-ahead drums, Post
Electric Blues could just as easily define a genre as it does
the latest offering from Idlewild. With a great blend of classic
rock and British indie pop, this is the product of a veteran band
having fun.
(09/30/10 6:00am)
For a while now, No Age has captured the interest of many
indie-rock fans with their noisy punk music and notorious live
performances. However, the previous full-length releases from this
guitar-and-drums duo have consistently fallen short of what the
band seems capable of. Randy Randall's tendency to over-rely on
distorted feedback and Dean Spunt's less-than-trained singing voice
have stifled their previous efforts, although brilliant songs like
""Teen Creeps"" and ""Losing Feeling"" revealed a band full of
promise. On Everything in Between, that promise is
realized.
(09/29/10 6:00am)
Everything in Between, that
promise is realized.
(09/26/10 6:00am)
Deerhunter have always been a band so unique that defining their
sound in the context of contemporaries is difficult. ""Atmospheric
punk"" is how the band describes themselves, but this term barely
scrapes the tip of the iceberg that is the signature sound created
by Bradford Cox and his bandmates. Halcyon Digest, the
fifth proper full-length from this Atlanta quartet, finds
Deerhunter expanding the horizons of their sonic landscape while
distilling their songwriting into some of their most poignant and
affecting material to date.
(09/23/10 6:00am)
""Are you depraved or, or are you deceived?"" Lead singer Stephen
Christian's words evoke those daily, indefatigable thoughts which
examine our own sense of self. Dark is the Way, Light is a
Place is the title that just barely skims the surface of the
album's instrumental and lyrical intensity. Anberlin, an American
alternative-rock band formed in 2002, takes emotional pain and
prosperity to an innovative, avant-garde level. With comparisons to
major bands such as Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday and New
Found Glory, Anberlin's fifth studio album encapsulates the classic
sound of punk-influenced alternative, galvanizing the repressed
depths of your psychological inquisitions.
(09/16/10 6:00am)
Upon listening to Lisbon, the sixth full-length album from
Brooklyn indie rock veterans The Walkmen, the first thing one will
notice is how sunny their sound has become. Those familiar with
their earlier work will note that Lisbon moves away from
the upright piano present in so many older Walkmen songs, in favor
of shuffling tom-tom beats and sauntering reverb guitar.
(09/12/10 6:00am)
If you've kept your ear to the ground for the last year and a half
of pop music, a band named Surf City isn't likely to rouse much of
a blip on your Richter Scale. With reverbed vocals, slippery bass
and loads of glossy guitars, they play shoegazey pop with a casual
immediacy. But Surf City aren't near as self-absorbed or stoic as
their peers, and the result is a debut LP, Kudos, far more
dynamic and with fewer hang-ups than you'd expect.
(07/28/10 6:00am)
Bethany Cosentino is dreamy. Whether she's looking for lost love
or hiding from it by way of marijuana, her head always seems to be
stuck in the clouds. Over the last year, Cosentino—alongside buddy
Bobb Bruno under the moniker Best Coast—has released a slew of EP's
and 7""s that capture the dreary-eyed blankness of a recluse in
love and forge a middle ground between pop culture's romanticism
and the real world's despair. The California trio's debut LP,
Crazy For You, stays the course, but in a deliberately
sunnier way that pays dividends in its directness.
(07/14/10 6:00am)
Talking on the phone, Angus Andrew sounds like an author. The
lanky singer for the experimental art-noise band Liars is
terrifically eloquent, but it's not just the way he talks—Andrew
thinks like an author, too. He's much more willing to discuss the
thematic constructs and narrative bones of his music than time
signatures or chord changes. He has never published a novel, but he
talks about Liars' albums as if they're his books—more vehicles for
ideas than collections of songs. And if their albums are books,
then this year's Sisterworld is his take on the
post-modern great American novel.
(04/26/10 6:00am)
Rock shows and record stores. That is what touring was all about
according to Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore in ""I Need That
Record!,"" a documentary that was streamed on the Pitchfork website
on the heels of Record Store Day. It profiles various record stores
as they shut down and the audiophiles who depended on them for
sustenance, and interviews industry veterans for perspectives
reaching back to the early prominence of the recording industry. It
laments the decline of independent music stores and the creative
side of the industry. Yet out of all of the dejected faces seen,
hope can be found when the undertones of those laments point to
industry-defying artists of today.
(04/25/10 6:00am)
We're only four months into 2010, but one of the best hip-hop
albums of the year may already be on our hands. Delivered by
21-year-old Bobby Ray Simmons, better known as B.o.B., The
Adventures of Bobby Ray is a refreshing and momentous change
of pace in a genre that can often get redundant. On his first LP,
B.o.B. went all in, proving his ability to effortlessly stretch the
limits of the rap genre. Ranging from rap to borderline punk, The
Adventures of Bobby Ray now showcases the abilities of a new face
in hip-hop.
(04/20/10 6:00am)
(04/19/10 6:00am)
Kate Nash's playfulness on her debut album, Made of
Bricks, won her a BRIT award in 2008. Her lighthearted malice
and overall quirkiness—not quite Lily Allen's smug vindictiveness,
not quite the innocently traumatized personas of Regina Spektor—can
be captivating. This coyness, matched with a drastically dynamic
array of songs, is what makes My Best Friend is You
memorable.
(03/17/10 6:00am)
Their eponymous debut was a rodeo bull bucking at the gates of
taboo, thrashing listeners into submission to their unabashed
tirade against political injustice. London Calling, their
third album, galvanized their socially conscious punk with an
onslaught of infectious hooks.
(03/16/10 6:00am)
Runaways: Having premiered early this year at the Sundance Film
Festival, ?The Runaways? depicts the story of the first all-girl
punk-rock band, starring Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie and
Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett.
(03/15/10 6:00am)
There are myriad forms of laughter. Laughter can indicate
unbridled joy, like the laughter friends share, the kind that is
paired with misplaced idioms or flatulence or whatever.
Diametrically, laughter can also be the first sign of a mind
spiraling downward; a laughter that indicates outward signs of
delirium tremens and an inability to cope with our particular
reality. Liars fall into the latter category with a laughter full
of hysterical realism.
