When U2 first came onto the international scene in 1980 with its debut album, Boy, it had yet to grow into the ungainly behemoth that audiences know and love today. Arena-rock ambitions aside, the album captures a more down-to-Earth if painfully earnest band. Luckily, U2 was also able to keep…
Is Richard Ashcroft talking about his bandmates when he sings “sometimes life seems to tear us apart/I don’t wanna let you go” on the Verve’s latest album? The band did break up prematurely in 1999 and finally reunited last year. Whatever the case, if the Verve ever suffered from any…
All That Remains frontman and bandleader Phil Labonte has no worries about how recent changes in the music industry have made it increasingly difficult for bands to remain economically viable. As a self-proclaimed conservative, Ronald Reagan enthusiast, and “fan of commerce,” Labonte takes a hands-on approach to his band’s career…
Fusion. Within music, it’s practically a dirty word. Though the term is intended to suggest the magic of endless possibilities, it has an unmistakably loaded ring to it. And much as in the realm of cuisine, anything that bears the “fusion” tag is likely to stir up derision, controversy, and…
To uninitiated American ears, learning that there is such a thing as “Nordic jazz” might seem contradictory — maybe even absurd. After all, is it really fair to wonder about the ability of Scandinavian players to capture jazz’s ever-elusive sense of swing? If you’re among the skeptical, then you’re in…
It’s become way too easy to take the Orb’s music for granted at this stage in the electronic outfit’s illustrious career. This new album should make it less so, as it clearly and definitively demonstrates how astounding the Orb’s talent truly is. Anything the Orb puts out now is necessarily…
Portugal. The Man likes spontaneity. The band also likes random punctuation in the middle of its name. You could even say the Alaska-based quartet has a knack for doing things ass-backward. For example: Even though the band writes music while on the road and works out the parameters of some…
For all his obsession about writing the “perfect” pop song — a preoccupation that has always made Weezer records sound forced and constricted — Rivers Cuomo comes pretty damned close at the start of this album with a refreshing, ultracatchy ditty named “Troublemaker.” Finally, Cuomo and the band deliver the…
More than just a handy reminder to aspiring poets and lyricists everywhere, the Miami-based group Nothing Rhymes With Orange strikes a perfect balance of shoegaze, pop, and anthemic guitar rock. Although it may not seem so imaginative to list the likes of Oasis and Ryan Adams as influences, this four-piece…
Much like a lover who keeps threatening to pack up and leave but never pulls the trigger, the Cure’s Robert Smith has suggested that the band’s albums/tours would be its last so many times that fans have little reason to even bat an eyelash anymore. But, as the band hits…
“Everyone else who gets the one-hit-wonder tag had real hits,” chuckles Nada Surf frontman and principle songwriter Matthew Caws. Of course, he’s referring to the New York-based group’s 1996 video for the appropriately titled song “Popular” off the band’s debut album, High/Low. With its slow-creeping guitar line, loud/soft alterna-rock crunch,…
Honestly,” laughs Mindless Self Indulgence frontman Little Jimmy Urine, “I’d rather fuckin’ be drawing a comic strip like Garfield and have it be syndicated. I’d just draw one joke every day and collect giant wads of cash. That’s my dream!” For now, though, that dream will have to wait, as…
With its opening bass/drum/piano groove, this album serves as a kind of rabbit hole into the world of experimental jazz. But rather than drop you straight into chaotic sensory overload, alto saxophonist Rob Brown and his cohorts carry you along gradually. So that by the time you get to the…
Even by their own genre’s standards, Polish black/death metal outfit Behemoth sounds like a relentless hailstorm of jackhammer drumming and super-fast, abrasive riffing. As if the band’s whiteface outfits and anti-Christian artwork weren’t clear enough, the latest album is called The Apostasy, which means “renunciation of religion.” Thankfully, though, there’s…
While a double album containing 36 instrumental vignettes from Trent Reznor may appear to be the very definition of self-indulgence, listeners should know by now that Reznor doesn’t do anything half-assed. That he focused on this material over a ten-week period late last year further suggests that Ghosts I-IV is…
I hate my fans,” huffs Al Jourgensen. The thing is, he’s not kidding. Not even a little bit. And it’s this hatred of his own fan base that, at least in part, accounts for Jourgensen’s decision to retire Ministry, which also happens to be his most popular and lucrative project…
As one of the most punishing live acts ever to emerge from the heavy music landscape, Jucifer presents a real physical challenge to its audience. Frontwoman Amber Valentine uses a wall of amplifiers for a sound so huge, dense, and loud that you’re basically guaranteed to damage your hearing if…
Judging from Wong Kar Wai films such as 2046, In the Mood for Love, Happy Together, and Chungking Express, the acclaimed Chinese director does not take the relationship between music and cinema lightly. In fact, Wai provides moviegoers (and filmmakers alike) with the ultimate example of how to use music…
Ska has its detractors and its aficionados, and both tend to do a disservice to the music’s actual value. With its surface flash of bouncy rhythms and bright horns, ska very easily pulls you in or turns you off. The people who dismiss it as too cute for their liking…
“Have you seen the Futurama episode where they posit that in the future, Star Trek will be a religion?,” asks Arif Mirabdolbaghi, bassist for Canadian math-metal outfit Protest the Hero. “It’s probably true. I mean, there’s such a volume of text there that you can make a pretty epic series…
My audience didn’t care,” veteran folk singer Tom Rush says laughing as he tries to explain why he didn’t receive the same backlash for going electric with his sound in the 1960s the way Bob Dylan did. “I don’t know why that was,” he admits, “but I think Dylan had…
When Yonder Mountain String Band’s lead vocalist and mandolin player, Jeff Austin, caught up with New Times a couple of weeks ago, we expected to gauge where he stood on bluegrass tradition. Although the Boulder, Colorado,-based group has turned this venerated musical form into a career, none of its members…
