Yerkish is a language created by experimental researchers to facilitate communication between chimpanzees and humans using geometric forms. And that’s about as apt a metaphor as you’ll find for this band’s approach to creating its music. Just as mathematics is the most direct approach that humans have devised to communicate…
Jason Vigil wears his Heart on his new CD’s cover, title track and every lyric he warbles. For that reason, his latest is sure to generate widely varied reactions. After spinning the disc, many listeners will relate to his every romantic complication, while others will feel the urge to do…
Joseph Arthur, Nuclear Daydream (Lonely Astronaut). Joseph Arthur is the most evocative, emotive performer and writer to surface in quite a while; think Bowie meets Conor Oberst. Arthur’s vocals and confessional writing style offer a peep-show peek into his troubled heart. — Mark Bliesener Phillip Bimstein, Larkin Gifford’s Harmonica (Starkland)…
While it may be an overstatement to say that Sepultura is the most influential death-metal band of all time, you’d be hard-pressed to find a likelier candidate. If nothing else, the act, which recently celebrated its 22nd anniversary, is certainly among the oldest death-metal outfits still going. One thing that…
Originally named after an early Brian Eno and Robert Fripp song called “Swastika Girls,” this Seattle band wisely settled on the more congenial moniker of Parenthetical Girls. Along with a shifting membership that includes Jherek Bischoff and Sam Mickens of the Dead Science, the Girls’ core consists of Jeremy Cooper…
After nearly two decades, the Bouncing Souls still sound enthusiastic and full of the wild, vivacious joy that first motivated them to pick up instruments as teenagers back in 1987. Pop punk is by nature a formulaic beast, and too many aging bands out there are clearly still playing only…
The stoner-rock movement should be deader than Felix Pappalardi by now. After all, the music was pretty dopey when it was new (back during the Lyndon Johnson administration). Yet the slothful tempos, leviathan riffs and echo-laden caterwauling that have long distinguished the form can still inspire anti-intellectual awe, especially when…
When legendary Studio One producer Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd died in 2004, he left behind a real legacy: Ska, widely considered to be the first truly Jamaican music, was among his most enduring creations. To pioneer the style — which combines the understated rhythms of 1960s R&B, jazzy horn sections…
New buzz bands tend to sound a helluva lot like the buzz bands that immediately preceded them — most of which have already lost their buzz or never really had much in the first place. Not so Wax on Radio, a Chicago act that draws from styles considerably more varied…
Well-versed in the kind of early-’90s shoegaze that typically took 27 guitar pedals and a British passport to create, Dirty on Purpose weaves those wobbly, blustery, mesmerizing tendrils of sound into arrangements so nicely crafted and highly melodic that you’re as likely to sing along with the act’s dreamy tunes…
The Haggardies’ debut full-length, So Good You’ll Think You’re Eating! (scheduled for release this Saturday, November 25, at the Bluebird Theater), will make you feel like you’ve jumped into a time machine and, for whatever reason, dialed up 1996, a time when ska-core seemed incredibly relevant and when hearing the…
“Are you pissed?” “Um, yes?” I’m washing my hands in the bathroom at the Fillmore Auditorium, and this girl with a cell phone stuck on her ear is wide-eyed and looking right at me. “Are you pissed,” she repeats, “that Jared Leto is still not on stage?” Phone Girl is…
What could be worse than getting brained by your bassist’s headstock in the middle of a set? How about having your cheek punctured by one of the tuning pegs, getting knocked unconscious and then coming to, choking on your own blood? That’s what happened to Fear Before the March of…
Acclaimed keyboardist Henry Butler had a great house in New Orleans. Located in the Gentilly neighborhood, it was big — 4,100 square feet — with a studio and plenty of room for his collection of musical instruments, including a 1925-vintage Mason & Hamlin piano that was among his most beloved…
On its self-titled debut EP, Lion Sized rips and roars its way through six loud songs of calculated, aggressive, minor-chord post-punk. Recorded live this past summer at Uneven Studios, the disc finds the trio — singer/songwriter Josh Bergstrand, bassist Duncan Barlow and drummer Rob Burleson (aka Number Three) — plowing…
File this one under “Stuff you need to know about to avoid cultural ostracism.” Cred Sheet is a periodic gauge of cultural stimuli for those unwilling or unable to think about this shit for a living 24/7. (Note: These people are most often smarter and better compensated than those who…
Jack Black and Kyle Gass have been rocking audiences as Tenacious D for more than a decade. Stints on Mr. Show and hosting their own HBO half-hour comedy special garnered the two actors a cult following. But it was 2001’s platinum-selling self-titled debut that truly earned them mainstream acclaim. Equal…
Tom Waits is one of those rare artists who has actually created a genre all his own. His gruff, howling, death rattle of a voice notwithstanding, he has carved out a musical world that is dark and primal, with shades of blues, jazz, Eastern European sounds, rumbas, waltzes and more…
Since the breakup of At the Drive-In, fans have blogged relentlessly about which ATDI offshoot should be more acclaimed. The Mars Volta consistently receives high praise for its proggy, experimental rock, while Sparta hasn’t been able to impress critics as easily with its much simpler classic-emo approach. But after two…
Mayday!’s self-titled debut is one of this year’s pleasant surprises. The act (not to be confused with the Saddle Creek outfit of the same name) is the brainchild of producer/keyboardist Plex Luthor and MC Bernbiz. Luthor’s early production work for Miami groups such as Algorithm and Spirit Agent offered simple…
Some of soul’s finest performers specialize in cutting loose; their vocals roar with authority. But just as many of the genre’s talents focus on control, synthesizing their emotions into a smooth confection that makes everything from infidelity to heartbreak taste as sweet as sorbet. John Legend falls into the second…
Sound Bites Aterciopelados, Oye (Nacional Records). Colombia’s Andrea Echeverri and Hector Buitrago ably represent the aural traditions of their homeland even as they offer up grooves and melodies with plenty of appeal for the Americans to their north. Witness “Canción Protesta,” in which Echeverri casts her lot with musical revolutionaries…
