Broadway Calls is the sometimes pop, sometimes punk, always ultra-catchy band hailing from Rainier, Oregon. Having been compared to bands like Latterman, Green Day, Alkaline Trio and Kid Dynamite, Broadway Calls appeals to an audience of intense, genuine music lovers: The kind of crowd that loves to sing every word to every song. After playing one hometown show, Broadway Calls took a sink-or-swim approach and headed straight out on tour with label-mate Daggermouth. The tour was a great success and Broadway Calls made a name for themselves in the hardcore community. In the year that followed the band hardly had time to come up fo...
Miracle Fortress create a doorway to reflection and gyrationMontreal based reflective and groove crafting muso Graham Van Pelt, explodes his solo production project of Miracle Fortress into a bolder, groove inducing and happy-go-lucky parade in a live environment. Graham is joined by family members, including the personable guitarist Jessie S, adding buoyancy and speed to his searching and reflective, electronic base;“Yeah, the live sound is louder, faster and heavier. There’s not as much of an electronic slant as there is on the album (‘Five Roses’ out now on through Rough Trade Records), either. We do pla...
The Cubical are coming and you better run for cover!This ostensibly blues/garage band will provide the long overdue kick in the teeth that the music scene has been desperately crying out for. Drawing on influences from the world of blues, jazz, folk and good old rock n roll this band truly have done their homework. Their debut album Poor Man’s Disease recorded in Hollywood by the Grammy award winning producer Dave Sardy (Oasis, Jet, Marlyn Manson) pulls the listener by the lapels and drags them on a journey from the staccato heart pounding sounds of 60s psych (Beefheart, Bo Diddley) to the melancholic musings of folk infused country (Cohen...
Critically acclaimed singer/songwriter Shauna Burns burst onto the music scene in 2005 with her debut album “Every Thought” to rave reviews and acclamation. Musical Discoveries declares "There is no doubt that “Every Thought “contains a dynamic energy in its complex blend of sounds and striking lyrics. Shauna has a unique style of singing, and combined with her virtuoso piano instrumentals, she has put together an album that is moving and intense." While Smother.net quotes "Every Thought," as "a new fangled fusion that will ignite a spark that will ...
Andy B. Franck – vocalsTorsten Ihlenfeld – guitars Milan Loncaric – guitars Dieter Bernert – drums Formed in 1989 by Torsten Ihlenfeld and Milan Loncaric on guitars and Dieter Bernert on drums, BRAINSTORM released their first demo “Hand Of Doom” after one year of existence. Followed by many shows and several compilations and demos (“Heart Of Hate” / 1992; "The Fifth Season” / 1994) the band signed their first recording contract in 1997.The self-produced debut album “Hungry” was an immediate winner wit...
There are few artists that need no introduction, but Sweden's SOILWORK are definitely one of them. Their reputation as one of the country's finest exports (aside from mustaches, Swedish fish and porn) is well-deserved. Few bands have melded the aggressiveness of metal with genuinely catchy choruses to such impressive results. Before you start name-dropping the latest metalcore sensation, let's just get one thing straight: SOILWORK did it first, and better! One listen to the band's latest, Sworn To A Great Divide, makes it obvious that they're still miles ahead of the competition. SOILWORK - which is not a reference to cultivation, but to wo...
Air Traffic's Fractured Life is a debut album of brilliant, occasionally brutal, mood music. From the sexual euphoria of "Charlotte" to the bleak introspection of "Empty Space", its mindscape is one we have all experienced, or soon will. By turns anguished and exuberant, cocksure and crestfallen, it is rock lived at a pitch of bi-polar intensity that reminds you why you got into this stuff in the first place. Because life is fractured, actually, and its highs and lows have a disconcerting way of interrupting each other. (Which is one reason why Fractured Life makes its point - all 12 of th...
FORMATION: After the breakup of the cult doom/death band Thorr’s Hammer in 1995, Stephen O’Malley, Greg Anderson and Jamie Sykes formed Burning Witch. The band then added G. Stuart Dahlquist and vocalist Edgy 59, rounding out their lineup. Anderson left the band and moved to Los Angeles to form the band Goatsnake. In 1996, the band (without Anderson) recorded songs with Steve Albini, which would become the Towers… EP. This collection would actually not see a formal release on 12 inch until 1998 on Slap A Ham Records. After the sessions for these songs, Sykes left the band and was replaced by B.R.A.D. The sessions that followed the Albini recordings resulted in the Rift.Canyon.Dreams EP, which would&n...
They say modern day Renaissance folk are simply multi-talented. For Love in October, The Musik Group’s Minneapolis- based movers and shakers, they transcend what it means to have their fingers in a little bit of everything. Their debut full- length, Pontus, The Devil, and Me, is set to be unleashed January 22, 2008, and showcases LiO’s ability to diversify all the subgenres found in pop. “It doesn’t bother me to say that we’re a Swedish pop rock band,” says frontman Erik Widman. “Actually it bothers me more to be called a &...
Alice Smith is in Los Angeles, staying high above Sunset Boulevard at that most iconic hotel of ripened Hollywood sensuality, the Chateau Marmont. Someone asks Smith if she likes it there. "Oh yeah," Smith answers with zero hesitation, "I do." She has more to say on the subject of the hotel: "Here's the thing," Smith says, "the one room here that I went to is the best room. It's all windows -- you can see all over the hills. It's overlooking the whole city. It's up on the seventh floor, and it's all windows, and they all open." She mentions her dislike of the mysteriously muddy lighting that Los Angel...
Harper Simon and Edie Brickell have written and collaborated casually during their many years of friendship. Yet in the last two years that collaboration has become more formalized thanks to a series of recording session in New York City with several friends including Sean Lennon and Yuka Honda (Cibo Matto). Naming themselves The Heavy Circles, the two will release their debut recording on February 12, 2008.Many years ago Simon had an idea to invite Brickell to join him in the studio with several of his friends. P...
Colleen Duffy created Devil Doll one late, smoky evening, many blue moons ago with the mission of putting sex back into rock and roll. Deciding that the world of music had not heard the truth since Joan Jett and Johnny Cash, and hadn’t blushed since Mae West, she grabbed her bass, a microphone and hit “record.” Colleen was born in Cleveland and was raised on Elvis Presley and black and white movies. After conducting homemade Elvis performances for her neighbors, her life was changed forever the moment she heard Joan Jett’s “I love Rock and Roll” on the radio. She picked up a guitar and started tellin’ the...
HELLYEAH IS Chad Gray – vocals Gregg Tribbett – guitar Tom Maxwell – guitar Vinnie Paul – drums Bob Zilla - bass HELLYEAH. Four musicians, three bands = creative collision of sonic proportions.Pantera and Damageplan double-kick maestro, drummer Vinnie Paul, singer and lyricist Chad Gray and guitarist Greg Tribbett (both from Mudvayne) along with guitarist Tom Maxwell (Nothingface) have combined forces to stop you in your tracks …and listen to theirs. HELLYEAH’s self-titled debut features the best element...
Norwegian singer Hanne Hukkelberg's 2005 debut album Little Things was a charming impression of life in Oslo, notable for its imaginative use of found sounds and eclectic array of instrumentation. Her elfin but idiosyncratic persona coupled with a lazily seductive voice drew comparisons to everyone from Joanna Newsom and Björk, to Stina Nordenstam and Billie Holliday. Her sophomore album Rykestrasse 68, her first since signing to Canadian label Nettwerk, is a tribute to the six months she recently spen...
When Joe Jackson went into an East Berlin recording studio with the rhythm section that has accompanied him, off and on, for nearly three decades, he had the most strikingly simple line-up in mind: just piano, bass, drums and his unmistakable, eternally yearning voice. As he later pondered a name for this compellingly to-the-point collection of ten new songs, he took a similar approach. “I wanted something elemental because that’s the kind of album I wanted to make,” Jackson explains. “There is no padding on it at all; the album is stripped to the bare essentials, so I hope it has a timeless quality. The title seems to fit.”...
This will be a famous album. To hear it is to remember music's native purpose, a howl against the gloom. Xiu Xiu has long been known among the music bloggers as prolific, bordering on crazed, but with this new 14-song album, each song so different from the next and so fully realized, their creative ferocity is simply astonishing and rapidly taking on new dimensions. With a heart too sensitive to accept humanity's darker side yet also unable to flinch from it, Xiu Xiu is a way of "owning your own shadow." Jamie Stewart has a novelist's eye for juicy details, and a poet's ability to wring impossible emotions out of the English language, finding black humor where there is usu...
“Three-Way,” the opening song on Distortion, introduces, in a deceptively exuberant blast of pop noise, the themes and obsessions of Magnetic Fields’ eighth album. The lyrics simply consist of gleefully repeated exclamations, by male and female voices, of the song title. While “Three-Way” may summon images of Twister-like physical exertions in a situation where three is not a crowd, the subsequent material describes scenarios in which desire itself is twisted into dark, alluring shapes and love remains tantalizingly unrequited. Using a modest number of instruments, composer and producer Stephin Merritt creates a veritable wall of sound. He employs no synthesizers; instead, he ...
The Evening Descends... and worlds collide. First you hear the prodigious musical skill: the deft guitar work, the clever pop sensibility, the wild arrangements. But then on other end of the spectrum there is the innocent and youthful charm of a trio of lost boys who seem to have no business making music with such maturity and sophistication. Taken together, you have Evangelicals, a wholly demented ensemble from Norman, OK. Dabbling in glam, slipping in a little funk and soul, drinking the psychedelic Kool-aid, blasting the synths, cranking up the guitars, and wrapping it all up with a dose of pop smarts, The...
“The Lost One” is a collection of twelve cinematic country songs by Barton Carroll. Since 2002, Barton Carroll has toured and recorded extensively with Crooked Fingers and Eric Bachmann, playing guitar, steel guitar, and upright bass. Carroll has also toured, playing various instruments with Azure Ray, Dolorean, and Micah P. Hinson.In 2006 Carroll released his second solo effort, “Love and War,” on Skybucket Records. “Love and War” received much critical acclaim in music journals such as Harp, No Depression, The Big Takeover, and many others. Pas...
Otep got their start in late 2000, when singer/band namesake Otep Shamaya brought her Marilyn Manson-meets-Kim Gordon style of singing to a crew of musicians known only as Rob, Moke, and eViL j. The foursome began gigging around Los Angeles and scored a deal with Capitol solely on the strength of their live show (they'd not yet recorded a demo), releasing the Jihad EP the following year. Rumors of cannibalism and dabbling in the mystical arts helped add to their mysterious image, and they found themselves being complimented by the likes of Marilyn Manson himself for their antics. Their eighth live show ever was at 2001's Ozzfest, and Otep stepped back into the studio with Terry Date at the tail end of the year to record their full-length de...
Sigur rós consists of jón þor (jónsi) birgisson (vocals, guitars), kjartan (kjarri) sveinsson (keyboards), orri páll dýrason (drums) and georg (goggi) holm (bass). The band were formed by jónsi, georg and original drummer ágúst in 1994. They were later joined by kjartan and when ægúst left the band after the recording of ágætis byrjun in order to pursue a career in graphic design, he was replaced by orri. Sigur rós hail from iceland, and rightly claim to bring you the beautiful landscape of their homeland with their music. It's impossible to fully justify it with words, so the be...
The 11th Hour ends a long absence for Del the Funky Homosapien, one of the world’s most uniquely brilliant rap artists. It is classic material, full of lyrical twists and turns, forthright yet deeply subtle and metaphorical in its exploration of life in the Bay Area. It is a triumphant return for one of the pioneers of underground hip-hop culture. Since 1990, when he made his auspicious debut on cousin Ice Cube’s classic Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, Del the Funky Homosapien has set the benchmark for advanced rap lyricism. His output for Elektra Records --1990&rsq...
According to Thao Nguyen, she has two talents: her first is she has a knack for beat-boxing and humming at the same time and her second, and in her opinion finest, is that she had a capacity to watch so much TV as a kid, she’s convinced her personality is made up of several different sitcom characters. Of course Thao, the 23 year Virginia-bred songwriter, is forgetting her unique voice, natural sense for a good melody, and striking lyrics, skilful guitar plucking and her deadly dry sense of humour. Thao’s debut for Kill Rock Stars, showcases all these talents and more, proving she’s a star in the making. With her perky strumming guitar, bluegrass ti...
Favorite psych-and-prog-spiritual pioneers BLACK MOUNTAIN are back with "In The Future", their second full-length album that resonates with the same epic ring, beloved deep rock touchstones and genuine folk fragility that made their self-titled debut full-length an instant classic. The new album possesses immense breadth, seamlessly showcasing short and classic folk-pop gems along with driving modern rock masterpieces, peaking with "Bright Lights", a seventeen-minute multi-dimensional opus that gives Pink Floyd's "Echoes" a run for its money. The new album also demonstrates...
“Nothing is ever quite what it seems.” So insists ‘The Wheel’, the first single to be released from Elevator Suite’s self-titled second album. A sumptuous four-minute fusion of slick-heeled electronica and laconic, smoky vocals, the track is a pitch-perfect example of this critically acclaimed band’s ability to craft retro-minded slabs of chill-out pop that simultaneously soothe and psyche-up the soul. Following the tidal wave of radio-fuelled success and relentless press hype that surrounded their debut back in 1999, Elevator Suite fell foul of industry disillusionment and crumbling inter-band relationships, and parted ways with t...
A word from Fred MascherinoI would like to introduce my side project. i\'m calling it the color fred, a name that won by popular vote in a poll i posted online. the color fred started back in the days of my former band, breaking pangaea. it was during this era in my career that i spent much of my free time in a dark, remote corner of my house that was my basement studio. the outcome of this time spent was a collection of songs far removed from anything else i was playing at the time. most of the songs were acoustic guitar with singing, but on many others, i would play drums, bass, shakers... wh...
kieskagato has been together since childhood and is as much a family as it is a band. unbeknownst to us, sometime between 1997 and 2007, we crossed over that boundary that keeps rock music neatly confined from the rest of the creative world and became the purveyors of some sort of \'art music\'. we promise that we never planned to do this- apparently something just went wrong somewhere between the kitchens where we spend our days and the propane and beer fueled garage where play music at night . regardless, kieskagato rolls on, playing with every sort of band from metal to avant-garde jazz to pop to singer-songwriters. we\'ve toured america several times and shared bills with many fantastic folks. we strongly admire the...
Most artists are content to stick with the formula they’re known for, changing as much (or as little) as they think they can get away with — but Louis XIV are not most artists. In fact, on their new album, Slick Dogs and Ponies, the San Diego-based quartet has headed into new sonic terrain. It’s a bigger, bolder, more ambitious record that shows the band’s growth and evolution while also staying true to their innovative take on modern music.Originally consisting of childhood friends Hill, Karscig, and drummer Mark Maigaard, Louis XIV began in 2003 wh...
2 Decades of Genuine Hip Hop Historically, there’s BC and AD-- Musically, it’s all about AD. Arrested Development wants to take you to another time and place. Making and breaking Records It’s been nearly 15 years since a new group called Arrested Development slammed into the world of hip hop with defiant lyrics of what? Hope. How dare them! Apparently the world was ready for the change as AD ripped 2 Grammy awards, one for best new artist and one for best rap si...
THE BIRTH OF A BASTARDMarch 1997. Alcohol, rehearsal room and two men, respectively known as Somnium and Katla. While usually bands are formed on purpose, the birth of Finntroll was more like series of unfortunate events: thus, enter traditional Finnish hoedown- music, “humppa”, mixed with folky black metal. Since those drunken first chords, the concept of Finntroll was born.A year later the two gentlemen recorded their first demo, entitled as “Rivfader”. This obscure tape circled within the underground scene with astonishing success and eventually, drifted into the hands of Spikefarm records who were more than...
