Reviews

Before the beloved Drive-By Truckers took the magnificent stage at the Beacon Theatre on Friday, October 17th, Birmingham, Alabama-based band St. Paul and the Broken Bones tore the place up. With their soulful, throwback rock and roll, tinged with dramatic Southern gospel, this seven-member band left jaws on the floor by the end of their […]

[rating=8.00] The 19 tracks come fast and furious (surprisingly ending up the shortest of all their past albums) touching on all of Rancid’s past influences. There is ska, blistering punk, political screeds, roots reggae and festival ready shout-a-longs that long time fans will instantly recognize and young newbies will devotedly latch onto. After the powerful […]

Last night, Phish played their seventh ever show at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Stepping to the stage for show seven in the midst of a twelve-show fall tour, the band rolled into the Bay Area lacking that one heavy hitting highlight evening that fans have been looking forward too for months. Although last […]

Something about Ryan Adams and his music brings out the stranger side in people. When he plays live this goes to the extreme. It’s difficult to pin down exactly why, but the best assumption is that acts like Conor Oberst, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, and Ryan Adams (to name a few) have all written songs […]

[rating=7.00] Despite having made eight albums of his own, Daniel Lanois still gets his bulk of praise for the records he produced for others, specifically those that went on to achieve superstar status: U2’s The Joshua Tree, Peter Gabriel’s So, and Bob Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind. Whether the legacies of those artists, specifically U2, […]

You can take Gene Ween out of Ween, but you can’t take the Ween out of Aaron Freeman. This fact was established within the first moments of Aaron Freeman taking the stage at the Parish on Saturday night. With his new band, aptly and perhaps metaphorically named FREEMAN, the former Ween frontman appeared healthy, happy […]

The trajectory of Nika Danilova’s Zola Jesus live shows has directly paralleled the trajectory of her recorded output: in just five years, she’s gone from mostly solo performances of lo-fi, Gothy drones to carefully orchestrated productions in which dark tinges barely disguise slickly-produced pop leanings. This evolution was in full effect Sunday night in Manhattan’s […]

[rating=8.00] Recording in the studio for albums like Automatic for the People, R.E.M. pushed the boundaries of their readily identifiable style more (and arguably more successfully) than any of their peers. And the Georgia band’s only comparable contemporaries in that regard, Ireland’s U2, never stripped their instrumental lineup down to acoustic basics as presented on […]

Maybe it was his recent appearances on Portlandia, late night TV appearances or just his excellent new release Tied to a Star on Sub Pop, but whatever the reason J Mascis sold out the Bowery Ballroom Friday night to a wide range of fans. All ages genders and races were in attendance to see the […]

[rating=6.00] For starters, the fifth album from Portland’s Horse Feathers was recorded in a combination of studio and…barn. Surely, it is a departure from previous work; Horse Feathers lead Justin Ringle was hoping to move away from his previously darker music, and in this iteration of Horse Feathers, feels he has. In the ears of […]

[rating=7.00] Basically, Betty Who grooved on to the scene last year with her varsity jacket and Chuck Taylors and hasn’t stopped moving. Although radio has yet to latch on to Who and her bombastic brand of 80s-infused anthems, reputable music blogs and Tumblr tweens alike have celebrated her unabashed approach to songwriting and melody. After […]

Minus the Bear’s tour in support of their latest release Lost Loves, a collection of unreleased material recorded during sessions for the Planet of Ice, Omni, and Infinity Overhead albums and the ten year anniversary of the They Make Beer Commercials Like This EP, made a stop at Philadelphia’s subterranean music venue aptly named Underground […]

[rating=8.00] After a year of touring together, husband and wife team Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn decided to record their first musical collaboration. The resulting album, simply titled Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, is a stripped-down collection of the finest gifts each performer brings to the banjo. Fleck is known for his smooth picking, his […]

[rating=7.00] The final installment of Charlie Mars’ so-called Texas Trilogy, The Money finds Mars taking a small step backward while at the same time continuing along his path of artistic self-discovery. After five albums as a standard singer-songwriter, Mars’ label went out of business and he was forced to go it alone. After some soul-searching […]

From 1996 to 2003, beloved Americana icons The Jayhawks cut and released three albums of material-Sound Of Lies, Smile, and Rainy Day Music without the services of founding member Mark Olson. Despite the music’s generally warm reception and the bevy of great song selections put forth, this period has traditionally been overlooked by many fans […]

A successful New York institution is hanging it up in 2014 after a year-long farewell tour, and no this review has nothing to do with Derek Jeter. Black 47, who have been playing New York City’s finest drinking establishments for over 30+ years, are turning on the lights and shouting last call as they close […]

[rating=7.00] Primus has always been one of the weirdest bands out there. In a post-Frank Zappa world, they’re the closest thing we’re ever going to get to the granddaddy of musical freaks. This is a mantel they’ve always worn well, even if it’s never talked about or spoken aloud. Anytime Primus releases a new record, […]

British singer Lily Allen has never shied away from speaking her mind. But sometimes she leaves it up to the audience to determine what she’s trying to say. The sassy, outspoken artist closed out her “Sheezus” tour in grand style at The Hollywood Palladium, filled with symbolism, sarcasm and social criticism. Allen opened up the […]

[rating=8.00] Punk rock pioneer and icon, William Michael Albert Broad – who is better known to us as Billy Idol, has no doubt stamped his place in the history books of popular music and solidified his presence for just over three decades. Idol has smartly chosen to collaborate once again with musical genius and guitar […]

[rating=7.00] This is the second time that The Flaming Lips have decided to tackle an all-time classic album, the first being 2009’s interpretation of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, and with both releases the first question that should be asked is, why? Both LP’s are ingrained in any music fan’s brain already and […]