Posts by Jeremy Lukens

On Saturday night April 15th, fans packed into the Amway Center in Orlando for some of the strongest music that mainstream rock has to offer. It was a night filled with anthemic choruses, sing-along moments, and enough heavy guitar riffs to satisfy rock purists. From Ashes to New started the evening with some energetic but […]

Metallica continues its resurgent comeback with 72 Seasons, a collection of hard-hitting metal gems that harkens back to the iconic band’s roots.

The New Pornographers again weaves its signature blend of melodic power pop, intricate vocal harmonies, and witty lyricism with infectious hooks.

Throughout the first five Tennis albums, duo Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley have mastered their own unique style of indie pop.

On Wednesday night (9/21/22) at Orlando’s Hard Rock Live, indie rock fans fought their way through Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights traffic and crowds to pack Hard Rock Live for Jack White’s Supply Chain Issues tour. Most fans arrived early to catch opener Cat Power. If the opening act’s job is to hype up the audience […]

After a five-year break from making new material together, Cincinnati rockers The Afghan Whigs return with its ninth studio album, How Do You Burn? The band’s third album since reuniting in 2012 was recorded at a distance during COVID lockdown, but it still sounds cohesive.  Sonically, How Do You Burn? is closely related to the […]

This late into a musical career, bands often go on autopilot, but Megadeth is still putting out music that rivals anything in the metal scene. After a couple of missteps, such as the more commercial sounds of Risk and Super Collider that really don’t work, Megadeth has corrected the course. 2016’s Dystopia put the band […]

Whatever you call John Dwyer’s California rock band — whether it’s The Oh Sees, Thee Oh Sees, or the current moniker of Osees — it has consistently released captivating music spanning a number of genres. The band’s prolific output of 26 albums in 19 years, including four since the pandemic, has incorporated elements of punk, […]

On Saturday night July 30th, a packed Hard Rock Live in Orlando was the site of an evening of great pop music from three diverse acts. It was the second show of the Wrong Party Tour, which kicked off in Key West on Friday. Maggie Rose began the show with a set of soulful country […]

By now, people know what to expect from an Interpol album. There’s a formula: layered angular guitars, staccato rhythms, angsty lyrics, and Paul Banks’s disaffected baritone. And the formula works, as evidenced by the Manhattan band’s long list of great rock songs. But with any formula, it only takes one new variable to change everything. […]

The third Soccer Mommy album, Sometimes, Forever, is a step away from the sound of the first two albums while retaining some elements of the previous efforts. This time singer-songwriter Sophie Allison teams up with producer Daniel Lopatin, best known for his experimental electronic music. The result is an album with more of a pop […]

The seventh Foals album is it’s most pop-oriented to date. Each of the first six releases had a pop sensibility, with big sing-along choruses and propulsive beats made for dancing, but the band’s rock stylings were also present, at times bleeding through the pop and at other times dominating the sound. With Life Is Yours, […]

On a Friday night (5/13) where rain kept the typical crowds away from downtown Orlando, middle-aged rock fans packed The Social to see Cincinnati veterans The Afghan Whigs. With no opening act and minimal lighting, the band delivered a no-frills 90-minute set that highlighted what the rockers do well. Starting with the frenetic “I’ll Make […]

Joywave released Possession in March 2020 and was set to tour to support it, including a show at The Social, in Orlando, Florida, but that tour was canceled by the pandemic. Originally rescheduled for mid-2021, the show was canceled again. On Friday night, Joywave finally brought a tour back to Orlando, but it was to […]

Three veteran rock bands took over Hard Rock Live in Orlando on Wednesday night, each delivering a distinct twist on head-banging music. North Carolina quartet Corrosion of Conformity kicked off the night with a blistering set of mostly uptempo rock. To start, bassist Mike Dean took the stage by himself and played the rumbling baseline […]

On Thursday night in Orlando, a crowd fought through downtown St. Patrick’s Day traffic to see Soccer Mommy play at The Abbey. The show got off to a rough start. After the opening set by Peel Dream Magazine, there were issues setting up Soccer Mommy’s equipment. Sound techs scrambled and took nearly thirty minutes to […]

On a cold and wet night in Orlando, Florida on February 8th, nearly 20,000 fans crammed into the Amway Center for one of the loudest and most unique rock bands around. Fellow 1990s alternative rockers Blonde Redhead opened the show with a 45-minute set of mostly mid-tempo pop rock. Multi-instrumentalists Amedeo Pace (guitar, bass) and […]

The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band was originally scheduled to play at Hard Rock Live in Orlando, Florida in February 2021, but due to COVID it was postponed to September 2021. As that date neared, a member of the band contracted COVID and it was postponed again. On January 28, 2022, a delighted Orlando crowd finally […]

The third time was the charm for Tedeschi Trucks Band. After the first two attempts to play at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando were postponed by COVID, the band finally put on the show Wednesday night (11/10) and kicked of run of eight shows in the southeast.. “It took us […]

Just over a year since its last release, Bristol quintet IDLES returns with another sonic assault. Crawler picks up where last year’s Ultra Mono left off, with fourteen tracks of aggressive, politically charged rock music. At its best, IDLES melds punk ferocity with the experimentation and noise of alternative and post-punk into an interesting and […]