Music

On the surface, Massive Attack’s inaugural soundtrack effort, which was written for a Jet Li thriller scheduled to be released next April, sounds rather atypical. Orchestral strings swell and heave only to be undercut by tense excursions into electronic rock. There is even a motif, a melancholy suite that floats…

Despite solid songwriting, burning fretwork, deep grooves, and an earnestly dark outlook, Warren Haynes and company can’t seem to achieve liftoff on Voodoo, the group’s first studio release since the loss of bassist Allen Woody. The retooled four-piece, which puts on intriguing live performances, serves up a mostly lackluster collection…

According to Mr. Webster, the word sellout means “one who has betrayed one’s principles or an espoused cause.” That’s an interesting idea when pondering how loosely this term is used to condemn bands who refuse to do what’s expected. Black Tape is nothing like the Explosion’s previous work. True, it…

There’s nothing more annoying to a music geek than an ad exec who’s ahead of the curve. How many indie rockers cringe when they see that McDonald’s commercial that financed the Shins’ last tour or hear Isaac Brock’s tortured bark in the background of an ad for minivans? Metric shills…

San Diego hardcore boys gone sensitive, Pinback has been a well-kept secret for years. Duo Rob Crow and Zach Smith originally did time in bands Thingy and Three Mile Pilot (two of whose members went on to found Black Heart Procession) before taking on Pinback full-time in 1999. After a…

Two outs, bottom of the ninth, and our team is getting its ass thoroughly pounded in what has been a disappointing season for South Florida music festivals. It’s 11 months into the year, and there hasn’t been a single, all-encompassing rock ‘n’ roll fiesta — something that caters equally to…

For a guy who takes the Christian Right to task on his new album and refers to Dubya as “Monkey Boy” on his website, Travis Morrison doesn’t seem terribly dismayed by last month’s election results. “I’m fine,” he insists, speaking by phone from the bluest of states, New York. Fine?…

There’s a lot of work cut out for anyone just copping to MF Doom after catching him bend space and time on that damn-near-relevant new De La Soul album. Between pseudonymous releases (Viktor Vaughan, King Geedorah) and his collabs (Mad Lib, MF Grimm), Doom has dropped four records in 2004…

In the 18 months captured in this seven-disc set, Miles Davis is between milestones. His astonishing early ’60s sextet (which gave us, among other things, the seminal Kind of Blue) is no more, and he is searching for what will eventually become his groundbreaking mid-’60s quintet. The collection encompasses an…

After a five-year hiatus, Handsome Boy Modeling School is back open for enrollment. With its second installment, superproducers Dan “The Automator” Nakamura and Prince Paul push the concept album envelope further. A smattering of old-school legends (reggae crooner Barrington Levy, surrealist diva Julee Cruise, John Oates — yes, that John…

Thanks to Beyoncé Knowles’ transparent ambitions, Destiny’s Child has been on a deathwatch since day one. And after Beyoncé’s solo breakthrough last year, pragmatic observers may wonder how her R&B trio has survived. But the real surprise of Destiny Fulfilled is its content, not its mere existence. Rather than the…

Pop music’s prolonged existence is due in no small part to constant homogenization. Mining underground movements for the sound of now has been its protocol since day one, leaving little for elitists to drool over. Somehow, Norwegian artist Anne Lilia Berge-Strand — Annie to you and me — found a…

Named after the act of two lesbians sitting with legs interlocked, rubbing their genitals together, New York’s Scissor Sisters are exactly what the post-election “red states” fear most about the bicoastal “blue states.” After all, as keyboardist/bassist/group epicenter Scott “Babydaddy” Hoffman remarks, “It would only take a little white to…