Paradoxically, metal bands tend to take themselves too seriously, which keeps outsiders from taking their music seriously. It’s difficult to add levity to lyrics about ritual sacrifices, cannibalism, and other gnarly topics, but even heavy outfits that aren’t death-obsessed can burden listeners with tales of angst and alienation. The hard-stuff…
From H.L. Mencken to the Coen Brothers, patronizing Yankees have always been quick to giggle at the rubes down South. Three decades ago — after watching Harvard-educated Dick Cavett grill high school dropout and then-Georgia governor Lester Maddox on national TV — Louisiana-born singer-songwriter Randy Newman decided he had seen…
With Silver Lake, Chesnutt strides confidently into the realm of lushness — and for the first time, that’s not an alcohol reference. Because of his partial paralysis, his guitar leans toward spare necessity, and his voice, always a wry bittersweet instrument, often comes closer to spoken word than to singing…
The conventional wisdom about Ziggy Marley is that as he gets older, his voice more resembles that of his daddy, Robert Nesta Marley, and his music sounds less and less like that of his father. This maxim has been stated so many times by music critics who feign knowledge of…
After 30 years of LSD-friendly rock ‘n’ roll, the Grateful Dead requires no introduction. But perhaps the Dead needs one. After Jerry “Captain Trips” Garcia embarked on his final journey in 1995, the rest of the band got together and continued as the Other Ones. The resulting tour highlighted the…
Anti-comic genius Neil Hamburger is traveling from Detroit to Pittsburgh, and his cell phone service is failing miserably. After the third disconnection, he issues this apology: “We passed some skunks back there. The smell was too strong for the satellite. I stuck some Ding-Dong wrappers on the antennae. I hope…
Rancid’s entire history has been based on the “Corporate Rock Still Sucks” premise. The group landed on MTV and made gold records without having to suck on the corporate pole. It jump-started the careers of the now-legendary Distillers and the Dropkick Murphys. But times have changed: Rancid signed with Warner…
New Times Broward-Palm Beach fell victim to an elaborate ruse when we published a go-see-it blurb in our Night & Day section for the Necrophiles for Sunday, July 6. When Tavern 213 staff confirmed that the show was indeed to take place that night along with local acts Shortstack and…
The 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia, is a hallowed place in indie-rock lore. More than 20 years ago, R.E.M., Pylon, and the B-52’s got their start at the self- described “premiere music club in the Southeast,” helping to create the notion that American regional music scenes had indigenous sounds…
From their formation in 1979 to their dissolution in 1997, the Cocteau Twins traveled far above the clouds and well below the radar. In Britain, the group’s legendary, uniquely divine ethereal-pop atmospherics earned heaps of critical praise and established a sound and vision for the renowned English indie label 4AD,…
Colin Meloy, the singer-songwriter at the heart of the Decemberists, spent his musically formative years in Missoula, Montana, but you couldn’t prove it by Castaways and Cutouts. The first full-length by his band, which is currently based in Portland, Oregon, sounds like the work of a hyperliterate Brit. “Leslie Anne…
Common courtesy dictates that you should never telephone anyone even peripherally involved with the music business until noon — at the earliest. Yet it’s coming up on 4:30 p.m., and Psycho Daisies leader Johnny Salton is still struggling to pull it together to talk about his band’s new album, Snowflakes…
When I listen to Vanessa van Hemert’s soaring voice and Carlo Resoort’s epic lush production, I feel like a naked princess riding bareback on a white horse, the wind blowing against my long blond tresses, hurtling through a forest toward a castle where my knight in shining armor will take…
Sounding more like an aural sketch pad of ideas rather than the fully realized follow-up to his 2002 self-titled debut, Andrew Broder’s Ether Teeth nonetheless sustains the Fog founder’s personal lo-fi charm from beginning to end. Soothing moodscapes and mopey singalongs abound. Pastoral psychedelia strides hand in hand with subtle…
The Smiths, perhaps more than any other band, embodied humanity at its most sensitive and vulnerable. So it’s profoundly disconcerting to hear a vocoder voice reciting the group’s “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.” Less jarring yet still somewhat spooky is “Frogstears,” on which the same robo-crooner strums…
Before film audiences ran off to see what would come ambling down the mountain after the release of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, they were basking in the lush, tropical tones emanating from the heart of Havana. During American guitarist Ry Cooder’s journey into the proud history and rich traditions…
It’s Wednesday night at the Goddess Store in Hollywood, and there’s enough shimmying, twisting, and plain ol’ ass-shaking going on to rival any South Beach club. Think Shakira on crack. The women dancing, however, are not concerned with superficialities like makeup, shoes, or impressing some guy across the room. They’re…
It’s barely a minute into Mogwai’s fourth LP before we get a breathtaking glimpse of all that makes the group stand out from its postrock brethren. After a plaintive guitar passage kicks off “Hunted by a Freak,” the song suddenly ascends to the heavens on rails of distortion, violins, and…
As South Florida band family trees tend to be, Secret Service’s lineage is quite involved. Singer Michael Alen and drummer Sean Perscky formed Nobuhjest in 1994 while Alen was also playing in the punk outfit One Size Fits All. That band morphed into Brown Study, and Secret Service was born…
According to Doctor Science and Professor Solstice, summer is officially here. But the usual brutality has been tempered by a second year of rain, daily and weekly rain, endless rain, rain of the feline/canine variety. While we cower and wait for the oppressive temperatures to begin, the seasonal slowdown is…
Heavy-metal satanists, gangsta rappers, and childhood-damaged aggro-rockers only wish they could create the destructive racket San Diego screamo machine the Locust makes on Plague Soundscapes. With the subtlety of a sledgehammer, the quartet speeds through 23 blasts of incoherence in just over 20 minutes. Some titles: “Anything Jesus Does I…
For its long-awaited debut, Germany’s Trüby Trio takes on the concept of transforming “elevator music” into something listenable. World-renowned DJ Rainer Trüby and multi-instrumentalists Roland Appel and Christian Prommer have made an album much closer to audio architecture than Muzak could ever hope for. It is vibrant and flavorful, packed…
