During his tenure fronting North Carolina’s Archers of Loaf, Eric Bachmann made sure his group never sank too deeply into the guitar-band monotony so many indie acts are all too happy to propagate. By the Archers’ last album, 1998’s White Trash Heroes, he’d twisted their post-Superchunk blare into dark, noisy…
Siblings always have the best harmony–in music, at least. Cruiserweight is made up of three siblings and a friend, and the band tackles the peppy, ultra-harmonic genre of pop/punk with better-than-average results. After moving from Terrell and Dallas to Austin, the band found a larger fan base and followed up…
I came dangerously close to insanity last year when I heard that Spoon’s new record wouldn’t be out until 2005. I was nearing straitjacket territory when a friend slid Robbers on High Street’s EP Fine Lines my way; the quartet’s lo-fi syncopated, piano-driven style was music to my Spoon-lovin’ ears…
Once upon a time, the existence of Jennifer Lopez CDs was entirely justified by the photos included with them. Given that she’s now 34 years old and has become one of the most overexposed celebrities to tread the planet’s surface, I figured this would no longer be true–but I’m thrilled…
File under “The Replacements,” but don’t file away. Get It Wrong It’s Alright is the disc you wish Tommy Stinson would make but doesn’t have to now, since his old Perfect bandmates, Marc Solomon and Robert Cooper, are doing it for him. Solomon, singing through the nose stuck in his…
Back when they were called Blisse, these boys could pack The Door. Now they’re nabbing high-profile autograph sessions at Virgin Megastore? How did this happen? These days, The Afters have stopped trying to pretend they’re not a Christian band, and their album I Wish We All Could Win feels healthier…
The questions of the night: “Is Pilotdrift as amazing as Good Records says?” and “How did they get to tour with the Polyphonic Spree?” Everyone, it seemed, had seen the store’s gushing newsletter about the Texarkana band and was there to confirm or debunk the hype. The bar had been…
The good-looking young men in Kings of Leon seem to exert a lot of energy making sure they appear to be living the rock-and-roll dream: In an icky new Rolling Stone fashion spread they can’t get their grubby hands inside enough gold lamé bras. Yet when you listen to the…
After a handful of records that were probably more disturbing than effective, Bay Area art-rockers Xiu Xiu broke out last year with Fabulous Muscles, the most accessible work yet for a group that decidedly needs that access. Out-of-the-blue electro-beats, creaky drones and spasmodic dissonance wrap around the freaky, almost-cabaret delivery…
Queens of the Stone Age fans had reason for concern when bassist Nick Oliveri left the band in February 2004. The bald, bearded freak was the psycho to singer-guitarist Josh Homme’s straight man; Oliveri added an off-kilter ingredient that put the Queens one step ahead of other stoner-rock bands. Since…
On last year’s potent White Elephant, Kansas City five-piece Doris Henson asked the eternal question, “Have you ever been called a whore by a girl who doesn’t even know you?” Touring in support of the upcoming Give Me All Your Money, the band pulls off a heady mix of post-punk…
Trial of the Century, the sophomore album by New York’s French Kicks, didn’t get the attention it deserved from Spoon fans enamored of that group’s taut white-soul indie rock. Live, the band cranks up to a steady simmer only suggested by the record, while front man Nick Stumpf works his…
There is a long and a short way to describe Mono: A) the Japanese Mogwai; B) Walking Cloud and Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered and the Sun Shined. If you chose B, then you know about last year’s excellent under-the-radar third album. If you chose A, then you are primed…
Though the immediacy of “I Will Dare”‘s first loping chords would suggest otherwise, it’s been nearly a decade and a half since Paul Westerberg fronted the mythically sloppy, booze-fueled Replacements. Which is longer than he was even in the group. Westerberg has been on his own for a while, but…
A few weeks ago, I wrote that the Dallas Music Fest was the city’s best-organized and least interesting festival. Well, I was right on one count. In only its second year, the Cleveland-owned DMF proved to be a disaster of confusion and mediocre music, with bands playing to empty houses…
We mean well. It’s just that sometimes we get confused. To boot: Last week, in a preview for the Falkon show at Hailey’s and Double Wide, Sam Machkovech wrote that the longtime Denton band was headed to New York. Not exactly. “It’s actually the last Falkon show ever,” explained the…
Best I could tell from months of listening without a lyric sheet–thank you, Internet–this second disc from the kin of itinerant evangelist Leon Followill had something (OK, everything) to do with fuckin’. You could hear it in singer Caleb Followill’s delivery, the greasy whine of the horny sumbitch looking to…
If your girlfriend thinks Iron & Wine’s Our Endless Numbered Days makes you a bit too sensitive, try handing her a copy of Woman King. Sam Beam’s latest EP doesn’t transform his softly sung folk into power rockers, but Beam and friends expand their minimal approach with a packed studio’s…
The fifth album by Australian indie-pop wunderkind Ben Lee sports the crappiest title since, oh, Operation: Mindcrime. But give the guy a break: Last year he broke up with longtime girlfriend Claire Danes, then got to watch her fall in love with Billy Crudup, a handsome older man who could…
When was it–the day before yesterday?–when Mogwai was the hottest new thing? They were young Scots with slow-slow-LOUD panache, forging a new instrumental-rock gateway to the 21st century. So maybe we’re a bit complacent after the inevitable midcareer slump (’03’s Happy Songs for Happy People). But slumps are relative, and…
The credits suggest this is some long-lost artifact from Deep Ellum circa the mid-1990s: Clay Pendergrass (Dah-veed, Vibrolux), brother Trey (Vibrolux), Chris Claridy (Fever in the Funkhouse, Jack Ingram), Reed Easterwood (Junky Southern, Meredith Miller Band), Paul Williams (Tablet) and Jack O’Neill (the “Jacko” half of Jackopierce). The music, likewise,…
Nope is like the love child of The Replacements, the Plimsoles, the Rave-Ups, Furniture and Lindsay Buckingham. Toss in that their next album is being produced by Richard Lloyd (of Television and Rocket From the Tombs fame), and their sound is all the more attractive. Cousins Herman Suede and Christopher…
