First things first; just by looking at a picture of Mastodon front-man Brent Hinds, you may not want to stare too hard as his gnarly look, he may jump out of the picture and strangle you to death. But upon listening to his band’s fourth full length effort Crack The Skye, you kind of go the way of Master of Puppets- this shit is heavy by its got melody and texture.
When a band sells out their esteemed hometown club, in this case, First Avenue in Minneapolis, it’s a sign that proclaims –“yeah, we made it.” Such is the theme of the Hold Steady DVD/CD combo – A Positive Rage – where the crowds get bigger and the band is running fast on momentum.
In the midst of a tour supporting two new Merge albums – 2008’s Conor Oberst and Outer South, due May5th – Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band had a couple albums worth of material to rock out to on this April evening. Sporting a big flat brimmed black sombrero that he got on the road a couple days earlier, Oberst looked all the part of his
Hmmm, the cello, it’s such an under-rated instrument in rock circles these days. But for Other Lives, a quaint quintet from Stillwater, OK, the cello's sorrowful sound makes the band “complete.”
There was a point in the middle of Leonard Cohen’s performance at the Dodge Theater where he admitted, “I’m very grateful to you all for keeping my songs alive after all these years. “ This was rightfully so, considering his last tour was back in '94. Fifteen years is a long time to wait for this brilliant mind and voice to recreate his songs on the live stage.
Self-described “musical soul mates,” Karl Briedrick and Marie-Claire Balabanian of Speck Mountain prefer to call their music “ambient soul” which is fair enough, but they are leaving out the “subtle beauty” that protrudes.
Although Future Clouds and Radar evoke two words that are plain annoying – “beatlesque and power pop" – the Austin outfit’s 2007 self –titled two disc debut, won over many new fans and even went so far as to be named fourth best album of the year by Harp Magazine. Their follow-up, Peoria, is a tight eight song 35 minute affair, and while not as grandiose as its predecessor, this one still finds the band enrolled at Beatles U.
Get Guilty, Newman’s second solo album following 2004’s Small Wonder, is less versatile than any of his New Porn releases, but grows on you more rewardingly. Mixing simple lush compositions with the typical he/she vocals we’ve grown accustomed to from the lispy voiced composer, there’s a lot going on here.
David Byrne has been known to reinvent himself through various artistic mediums, so it was no surprise that he recently decided to recharge his creative battery by reconvening with Brian Eno. Byrne/Eno of course are renowned for their work on early Talking Heads albums and 1981’s landmark electronica/ambient album – My Life in The Bush of Ghosts.
Despite the fact that AC/DC is considered classic rock , their relevancy in 2008 couldn’t have been more obvious by the deep lines at their merch booth tables within the arena. With mullett heads lined up next to the trendy set and almost a 2 to 1 girl to guy ratio, there wasn’t a genre of fan who couldn’t wait to sport the AC/DC logo on a t-shirt. A
