Music

Riding in on punk’s second wave with Joy Division, Talking Heads and the Fall, Gang of Four distinguished itself by wedging militant left-wing politics and atonal riffs into a rubbery dance groove. Now singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bassist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham — who initially met…

This past summer, Ville Valo, the charismatic frontman for Finland’s H.I.M., announced his engagement to gal pal Jonna Nygren, and he’s got some ambitious plans for their impending betrothal. “My main idea is to build up a church,” Valo declares, his English accented with more than a smidgen of Scandinavia…

All hail X, the band that has somehow remained unembarrassing as it ages, a most difficult task for punk-rockers. Just look to its contemporaries, the Germs, to witness how sad punk rock has become. Despite the 1980 death of singer Darby Crash, the band’s surviving members want their glory back…

Fiona-philes will no doubt raise their wine to the heavens and toast their tortured troubadour for her latest burst of brilliance. Six years in the making, Extraordinary Machine, originally produced by Jon Brion, then scrapped (except for two songs) and retooled by hip-hop sage Mike Elizondo, was the subject of…

Some people get home at night, neatly undress, and place their clothes in tidy piles. Real human beings, though, throw their shit all over the floor and drunkenly stub their toes on half-eaten pots of Chef Boyardee as they stumble to their unmade beds. Broken Social Scene plays it both…

If the idea of a synthesized bass line opening a My Morning Jacket record disturbs you, stop reading and go back to your latest issue of No Depression. Your loss. With each release, Jim James and his compadres take another leap, further alienating their alt-country fans while charming a brand-new,…

At a time when hip-hop is mostly concerned with escapism, the song “That Night” is an enormous exception. It concerns Marissa Mathy-Zvaifler, a sixteen-year-old who was slain a few hours after a 2003 Atmosphere show in Albuquerque, and rapper Slug doesn’t hide behind metaphors. Sample couplet: “He raped and killed…

Everything about Dead Ringer — from its name to its vaguely radical screeds to the shrill tone of its guitars — screams generic. So it’s to the band’s credit that Let Freedom Ring, its debut full-length, takes such played-out elements and pounds them into something compelling. With obvious nods toward…

This four-piece is a genuine hybrid. Their lyrics vacillate between English, Spanish and Portuguese, while the music blends hard-core punk and metal. The results are as brutal as they are effective. Judging strictly by time, Valiomierda, which clocks in at well under half an hour, qualifies as an EP. Somehow,…

Afro-Cuban All Stars, Step Forward the Next Generation (Globestar). Ex-Sierra Maestra drummer Juan De Marcos Gonzalez expands the Buena Vista Social Club’s infectious dance vibe with his own big band’s first studio album in more than six years. Along with the fox-trot rhythms of “Adivinador” are tracks whose styles range…

In the view of some Tortoise critics, slow and steady doesn’t always win the race. It’s All Around You, the latest Thrill Jockey Records release by this Chicago combo, is a deliberately paced effort that doesn’t radically depart from Tortoise’s previous platter, 2001’s Standards. As a result, the disc disappointed…

Embodying the spirit of Louisiana on many levels, Tab Benoit has been calling Colorado home this month. In an effort to help rebuild his beloved hurricane-ravaged bayou region (and spread the gospel of the blues), Benoit and his band have played their way through the high country, including at benefits…

Canada’s We Are Wolves epitomizes the evolution of the band’s American label, Fat Possum Records. That Oxford, Mississippi-based firm first made its name by championing blues artists such as R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and T-Model Ford, whose rough-hewn stylings contrasted with the slick products put out by more commercially cautious…

There’s a darkness on the edge of Lucero’s town. The foursome comes from Memphis, which seems a million miles away from the golden smile of Nashville — at least in light of the act’s defiantly titled new album, Nobody’s Darlings. On the disc, Lucero works solidly in the Uncle Tupelo…

“Empowering stoner metal” might sound like one of those self-refuting contradictions that George Carlin talks about — like jumbo fries or military intelligence. But for Blackfire Revelation, a loud, droning two-piece from New Orleans, every glassy-eyed whiff of Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf” comes with a vague, lyrical pep talk. Take,…

“Emo” isn’t really as bad a word as critics would have you believe. From the ’80s heyday of Rites of Spring and Embrace to the genre’s many mutations throughout the ’90s, emo has an honorable tradition that a few shitty MTV bands can’t erase. When the Appleseed Cast released its…

While the bulk of the Wu Tang Clan generally adopts a bullets-can’t-touch-us-because-of-our-Shaolin-sorcery approach to hip-hop, Ghostface Killah — in a Diddy-esque turn, now going as just Ghostface — has always been more of a if-you-shank-me-do-I-not-bleed kind of guy. Although Ghostface is not short on braggadocio or mad crazy, provocative, stoopid…

Spreading the gospel of pain since 1986, the Genitorturers, a goth-shock outfit out of Orlando, never shy away from including a bondage demonstration or two in their live set — an abrasive, costume-changing bacchanalia hosted by statuesque Mistress of Ceremonies Gen Vincent. After leaving her native Albuquerque at seventeen to…

With viral melodies, sold-their-soul technique and devilish beats, the four horsemen of Seattle’s the Divorce create end-times party music that doubles as another sign of the apocalypse — the deliciously sinful triumph of style over substance. Opening with the festive “Yes!” and whipping us into a caffeinated froth with tracks…

Don’t call it a throwback — well, actually, go right ahead. Frontside Five is proudly unapologetic about exhuming the thrash of classic American skate-punk acts like the Faction, Gang Green and Life Sentence. Formed three years ago by singer Brandon Stolz, bassist Brooke Crawford, drummer Robb Dogg and guitarists Shane…

Taking to heart the notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, DJs Etain, MLE, Jamie Kent and Ms. Vicious formed the all-female DJ collective known as Angelic early this year. Each of these ladies has spent much of the past decade carving out a name…