On the Record
Sometimes, in the middle of a movie I'm enjoying, I’ll get a brain kick that tells me it’s really a winner. As I write this, I’m listening to ex-Band/Hall of Fame lead guitarist and songwriter …
Few bands as popular as the Foo Fighters go 16 years before having an album hit #1 on Billboard's Top 200 for the first time, but that's what Wasting Light has done, and it's easy …
TV On The Radio's yearlong hiatus allowed its members to explore creative avenues. From Dave Sitek's synth-heavy Maximum Balloon to Kyp Malone's eclectic Rain Machine record to Tunde Adebimpe's first mainstream acting role (Rachel Getting …
After toiling for roughly a decade in the West Coast underground, Strong Arm Steady finally releases what they're billing as their debut full-length. San Diego fans should be happy: SD-bred Mitchy Slick is back after …
Were I the man on the deck at the college radio station, I'd first throw on track two, "Mine As You Ever Were." Not so direct as the opener "One of One," this "Mine" nevertheless …
A new Radiohead album is an event, a holiday for my depression, a time when my melancholy is paid the respect it is owed. Radiohead's eighth full-length, however, starts off emotionless and weak. "Bloom" is …
Polly Jean Harvey returns and sounds positively (Kate) Bush–whacked on her eighth and most commercial album since Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea. From the nursery-rhyme chant of the title track, it rarely …
If you're getting dressed to go to a party, you don't want to warm up listening to three-time Grammy winner Lucinda Williams. But if you just ended a relationship and want some consolation that somebody …
Respectful (albeit soulful) backing vocals and laid-back, loping resolutions on the first couple tracks of this reissue (originally released in '01) seem a lifetime from Peter Green's stints with the Bluesbreakers and Fleetwood Mac. And …
I hope people don't write off the Smoosh record because it's self-released. Or because it's a mostly web release. Or because it sounds more mainstream than the last two. Or because they're young. Or because …
When big brother Noel Gallagher, the chief songwriter, quit Oasis, the jury was out on how little bother Liam and the remaining members would survive. Apart from the erstwhile Noel, they return as Beady Eye. …
London’s Yuck is one of several new acts to lean on the ’90s indie-rock formula of distorted, busy guitar hooks, simple bass lines, and literate lyrics. But on their s/t debut, Yuck accomplishes something that …
After years of paying dues in various groups and collectives, Onry Ozzborn has put Northwest hip-hop on the map. His experiments in varying degrees of morose expressionism turned an artistic corner with the release of …
She beguiles me. She fascinates me. Her knack for hovering right outside a lyric, desire pressed to the emotion(s) within (a scenario she evinces literally for "Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird") reminds me of no one …
If any performer has earned the right to sing the blues, it's Gregg Allman. His brother died in a motorcycle accident in 1971 at the peak of the Allman Brothers band's ascent up the charts. …