For now, for the next few months, the Dismemberment Plan lives on. There is a pair of North American tours to wrap up, as well as the Washington, D.C.-based band’s hometown farewell, at Fort Reno on July 28. Then there are a few dates in August in Japan, a surprising…
There’s history and there’s what people remember, and usually they don’t have much in common. Childhood memories often don’t match up with the home-movie version of the same events; the sets change, the wrong characters say the right words, the plot twists unexpectedly. It’s unfortunate, but it happens. Hard facts…
A year or so ago, maybe two, England was losing its collective shite over Denton’s Lift to Experience and the band’s ambitious debut, The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads. We’re talking five-star reviews and second-coming salutations all around, not unlike what happened when Uncut and NME picked up on what the Polyphonic Spree…
Marilyn Manson’s appetite for destruction needs sustenance. After 10 years of singing fight songs in fishnets, Manson has been advocating the end of everything for so long that he’s in danger of negating even himself. The shock-rocker’s last disc, 2000’s half-baked Holy Wood, was dismissed by critics and passed over…
Comps like this, containing scattershot offerings from the disparate likes of Ray Davies and, gads, Dionne Warwick, shouldn’t be sent gratis to rock critics; otherwise who’s left to buy these things, save for those who remember when Jools Holland had a TV show on the BBC? This sequel to a…
Singer-songwriter Ed Harcourt follows up his Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut, 2001’s Here Be Monsters, with From Every Sphere, a dozen songs picked from sunniest of graveyards and gloomiest of birthdays. Comparisons have been drawn between this young (25) Harcourt and, among others, Tom Waits and Brian Wilson. Understandably so: On…
What’s the only thing better than a killer novelty song about dancing that marries disco’s forward momentum and textural whoosh to rock’s blow-dried grit and radio-hit brevity? A whole album full of them! These two groups–Detroit five-piece the Electric Six and Danish duo Junior Senior–are the proud owners of two…
Ipecac Records’ traveling Geek Show hits the Ridglea Theater in Fort Worth on Wednesday night; if you’re disappointed in the turn metal’s taken through the mainstream in recent years, you should, too. Headliners Tomahawk are a straight-up supergroup staffed by Faith No More/Mr. Bungle/Ipecac mastermind Mike Patton, ex-Jesus Lizard guitarist…
If Avril Lavigne and her strip-mall punk peers hold any aspirations of career longevity, they would do well to pay attention to the musical trajectory of Irish rockers Ash. Beginning in the mid-’90s as a scruffy adolescent trio with a fondness for the Buzzcocks, Green Day and songs about “Hulk…
To people who weren’t members of the New York Dolls, the new New York rock scene isn’t exactly lacking in spunk or attitude: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Strokes make up for what they occasionally lack in the songwriting department with a polished streetwise sass, and even that one…
When in doubt, there’s always the weather. Pete Yorn, for example, doesn’t have much else to complain about. The singer-songwriter’s debut LP, Musicforthemorningafter, earned both gold record certification and critical hosannas for its polished, Bruce Springsteen-meets-Jeff Buckley guitar rock. Yorn even looks the part, what with that mop of dark…
For 40 bucks, you can buy a device that emits some of the most irritating and beautiful sounds imaginable; a device that not only presents an international kaleidoscope of opinion but also receives secret spy transmissions. Best of all, every time you turn it on, the thing behaves completely differently,…
Last week we talked a bit about local musicians doing it themselves, creating their own shots the way Nick Van Exel does at the end of tight games. Or, actually, pretty much all the time. We were speaking specifically about some groups that didn’t wait for an opportunity but, instead,…
Finally caught the Pernice Brothers a year or so ago at a club in Memphis, a first-time-caller-longtime-listener visit written in pen and underlined on my to-do list as soon as they opened a “Clear Spot” in my head and heart on 1998’s Overcome by Happiness. But the show wasn’t quite…
Some albums shouldn’t be reviewed till they’ve been out a while; some need time to simmer on the digital hotplate to allow for maximum flavor to savor. Had this been written a month ago, when the advance arrived, it would have been waved off as too woefully flaccid to overcome…
The Gossip’s bassless counterparts, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the White Stripes, favor gritty blues flavored by their urban digs. But this Arkansas-via-Olympia, Washington, trio testifies as if it were at a garage-rock gospel revival fueled by Southern soul. Movement, their second effort, shakes mightily with swampy rumblings from guitarist…
No matter your feelings on droopy El Lay heartthrob Pete Yorn, give him credit for picking Modesto, California, oddballs Grandaddy to open for him: Sumday, the outfit’s forthcoming third album, is about as far as you can get from Yorn’s radio-ready pop-rock without risking the wrath of the droopy high-school…
Ready for three more so-so emo bands to separate you from your hard-earned eight bucks? Elliott, Vendetta Red and Mae, three of the so-so-iest emo bands around, sure are. Elliott drops in in support of the new Song in the Air, the Louisville outfit’s third album and its first since…
It’s the attack of the Earnest Guitar-Strumming White People! On his debut with the band that bears his name, the aptly titled Famous Among the Barns, Ben Taylor sings, “I am the sun/That’s all I’ve ever been since I begun/All I’ll ever been until I’m done.” But, people, it’s called…
Maybe you grow up backward when you start to play music. Running comes before walking; loud and fast come before slow and quiet. When you pick up a guitar, you have to learn how to turn it up before you can turn it down, have to see how far you…
In a perfect world, as opposed to a Bizarro world in which rock critics are American idols, the release of a Richard Thompson album would be Big News, cause for celebration; instead, once more, it’s a joyous whisper among cultists and the converted. Granted, he’s an acquired taste, like absinthe…
Watching Game 3 of the Mavs-Kings series (or as we refer to it: The Best Basketball Game Ever) the other night reminded us of the local music community. Specifically, one player’s performance in the two overtimes put the thought into our heads. Walt Williams–“The Wizard,” they call him–had been languishing…
