I’ll level with ya: We haven’t run a Set List concert review in way too long. But it’s not that the writers here have shunned local concerts–far from it. Here are some of the best live acts I’ve seen in the past month and a half that haven’t gotten enough…
“In the States, I’m still worried it’ll slip through the cracks again.” Midlake lead singer Tim Smith is at his home in Pilot Point, an hour north of the Denton house where he and the rest of the quintet recorded The Trials of Van Occupanther, and he says this while…
Finger-lickin’ good: Whenever an e-mail hits the AAT wire from local noise-rock progenitor Mwanza Dover, a huge groan can be heard in the office. That’s because we need at least five staffers to dig through his lengthy spiels (“I am burned out on the local scene and a lot of…
The key to this fourth and not-just-another-fine-but-finest CD yet by these Midwest rock Wilburys is its one faithfully rendered cover: “Strangers” by Dave Davies of the Kinks. Just as that song allowed brother Dave to provide a perfect counterpoint to Ray Davies’ songs on Lola Versus the Powerman, Golden Smog…
Along with Uncle Tupelo, Missouri’s Bottle Rockets have to be considered the godfathers of the ’90s alt-country/roots-rock revival. Their sophomore effort, The Brooklyn Side, stands alongside Too Far to Care from the Old 97’s as a landmark recording made during the movement’s brief heyday. Since 1994, singer/guitarist Brian Henneman has…
In the indie-rock canon, the Pacific Northwest gets its rep mostly from its Seattle and Olympia greats. Makes sense–Washington state’s Pacific neighbors, Portland and British Columbia, Canada, haven’t had important record labels such as Sub Pop and K to push their best bands. But the best Pac-NW album of the…
Though they’re huge stars in their native U.K., Muse has never reaped the sort of Stateside success attained by their countrymen in Coldplay and Keane. Black Holes and Revelations, Muse’s fourth album, proves why right from the start, when “Take a Bow” opens the proceedings with a dramatic synth fanfare…
Through creative playing and use of effects pedals, Burntsienna Trio’s Justin Collins stretches the limitations of the banjo, an instrument wrongly stereotyped as the territory of drooling, overall-clad moonshine connoisseurs. Whether it’s the fast-picked getaway music of “On Demand” or atmospheric plucked notes in “Prelude to Theme from Little Bermuda,”…
Connoisseurs of commercial hip-hop, pseudo-soul and top-40 R&B have a full dance card this weekend. On Friday night, Def Jam Records’ Ne-Yo will take a break from working with the likes of Beyoncé and Britney Spears to bathe in an ocean of shiny shirts and fluorescent bleached teeth at Purgatory…
Why smack everyone over the head yet again with the importance of these two acts (which we already did months ago by reviewing their new records, Paul Simon’s Surprise and Ray Davies’ Other People’s Lives)? Because for once, it’s easy to lump them together. Both charmed the world in their…
Hardin Sweaty and the Ready to Go? The Dallas band’s name generates a knee-jerk grimace, but two songs into their concerts, most grimaces curl skyward. Riffs that mercilessly slap your face coupled with an enthusiasm usually reserved for hyperactive 6-year-olds produce a sound that justifies and emboldens such a ridiculous…
Taking a night off from the Sounds of the Underground package tour currently hitting larger venues nationwide, these heavy-metal heavyweights stop in at the Ridglea for a more intimate night of brutality. Sweden’s In Flames have inspired many of the young metalcore bands that’ve found success over the past few…
Of all the labels to be unfairly saddled with, the oxymoronic “Christian punk” tag has dogged this Pacific Northwest trio for more than a decade. Sure, these fine, not-so-young lads don’t spew expletives like hard-core legends Black Flag nor do they wallow in sexual depravity like punk godfather Iggy Pop,…
In 2000, lauded producer, remixer, DJ and label owner Peter Rauhofer won a Grammy for Remixer of the Year. For all those who even knew such a category existed (and for the even fewer who believe a Grammy bestows any merit whatsoever), Rauhofer (who splits his time between New York…
You punks! Get off my lawn! I’m kidding. Just mind the tulips, wouldya? Judging by your Operation Ivy patch and your pal’s Green Day pin, you’re on your way to get tickets for Rancid’s Friday, July 14, show at the Gypsy Tea Room. Sixteen bucks for tickets…that’s real punk. But…
They’re currently enjoying the indie-scene buzz that can turn a little-known local band into an international sensation overnight, but Rachael Hughes and Nathan Shineywater’s brief history as Brightblack Morning Light did not begin auspiciously. As Hughes recounts over the phone from a tour stop in Florida, she and Shineywater met…
With so much death metal and screamo in the metroplex, what’s a headbanging purist to do? Sure, a band like Necrogazm will hump your eye socket with rapid-fire sludge, and Autumn Silence adds metal riffs and satanic screams to a mall-friendly emo formula, but speed and screams alone don’t cut…
Do you even read this?: Every week, someone calls or e-mails AAT HQ to ask the following: “Are there any good local bands worth seeing?” We’re required by staff policy to smile and politely respond with a concert recommendation or two, though we’d rather wrap a brick with a copy…
On Camera Obscura’s third album, Tracyanne Campbell’s songs have propelled the Scottish outfit from a lesser-known Belle and Sebastian mimeograph to a full-blown pop consortium of its own. Let’s Get Out of This Country nods to other artists musically, from George Harrison to the Supremes to the Concretes, but lyrically…
There were but four Small Faces, and two of them landed in Austin: bassist and multiple sclerosis sufferer Ronnie Lane from the late 1980s to the mid-’90s and then-keyboard player Ian “Mac” McLagan, today the capital city’s most beloved ex-pat musical Brit. MS finally took Lane’s life, but McLagan fondly…
The title of A Hundred Highways, Johnny Cash’s final recordings, actually understates the roads and mileage he traveled–literally, spiritually and musically–and their resonance throughout this disc. The larger-than-life Cash voice is ragged and wizened, yet it still brims with what was all along his biggest vocal gift: character that runs…
A collection of 21 outtakes from last year’s Illinois “shamelessly compiled by Sufjan Stevens” (as the cover faux-modestly reports), The Avalanche lacks by definition the potent thematic thrust that’s defined each of this Christian emo-folk heartthrob’s previous albums. That’s more than a cosmetic issue: Stevens makes no attempt to conceal…
