On the Record
I first saw Boz Scaggs in 1966 at the Matrix in San Francisco. He was playing in a jazz-rock combo with some cat named Steve Miller. Fast-forward 50 years and they are both award-winning senior-citizen …
“How could something so fair be so cruel?” Ben Gibbard asks on the lead single of Death Cab for Cutie's first studio release in nearly four years. With that question, “Black Sun” sets the tone …
“Would that make it a better song?” Lou Reed asked a caller into an NYC radio show. Caller wanted to know if the dead girl in “Street Hassle” was real. Lester Bangs didn’t print the …
Continuing to chip away at their college rock roots, Guster's Evermotion further obscures the band's acoustic guitar and bongo-backed beginnings. The opener, “Long Night,” provides an overture of sorts, lulling the listener in with dreamy …
Elder statesman of British rock Noel Gallagher has ignored the speculation of an Oasis reunion to concentrate on making new music rather than backtracking. However, “Riverman,” the opening scene of the cinematographic Chasing Yesterday, is …
With a chorus reminiscent of classic Elton John and viral video amassing more than 100 million YouTube views, “Take Me to Church” quickly placed Irish singer-songwriter Andrew Hozier-Byrne (aka Hozier) on America’s musical pulpit. While …
On his solo debut, Arcade Fire’s Will Butler attempts to scramble out from the behemoth shadow of his indie-rock super group. But the dreamy rock feeling that flows so freely from his previous band does …
That leadoff track adds up everything in its unequal-length verses, the pieces of a life, the happier bits fallen out, rotten pieces in a too-humid jigsaw — and every equation equals no peace. That’s the …
Kicking off the head-trip that is the Loons’ Inside Outside Your Mind, “Siren City” engages with its hypnotic riff and upbeat melody, cruising comfortably detached from the surrounding pandemonium. Snapping at its heels is “Moon …
“Then came the morning.” Such a simple phrase with such a comfy feel to it. A lightness. The night may have tested their resolve...then came the morning. There's hope in that phrase. It sets the …
Let’s talk about space. I could talk about the sticky funk (not stinky — funk’s already a mite impolite), the stickwork (Billy Martin so light on the skins I do believe he’s learned from writing …
In the 1960s, Bob Dylan provided my peers and I the soundtrack of our times, chuffing famous lines like "How does it feel/ to be on your own/ no direction home/ like a rolling stone?" …
When Marilyn Manson first sauntered onto the music scene in 1994, he represented all the repressed fears and anxieties of white America. Gaunt, ghoulish, and grotesque, Manson reveled in the macabre debauchery and anarchistic devolution …
As the first song on Lenny Kravitz’s latest suggests, Strut is unabashedly about “Sex.” The funky album-opener’s driving beat and jangly guitar is a full-throttle introduction that awakens the senses. Two songs later, the carnal …
The band that kept the heart of the riot-grrrl movement pumping is back, in a wicked way. Sleater-Kinney’s No Cities To Love burns bright and flames out on cue, blazing a trail for other punk …