The first release in The Social Regsistry’s new Social Club singles subscription is from actress Jena Malone, who has sustained her career with low-key roles in off-beat films like Donnie Darko, The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys, and Saved! With such an innocent, almost child-like onscreen presence, it’s hard to imagine she’d create music anywhere [...]

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After seeing Ian Williams play guitar with Don Caballero on the What Burns Never Returns tour, I told anyone within earshot that I wanted to have his babies. Now, I realized this did not follow the natural order of things, as we were both men. I said it in jest openly and loudly, and I [...]

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The British press’ one-note (!) hype machine has cried wolf so many times over the years that Americans rarely even bother to read the headlines anymore, which may explain how the Klaxons have infiltrated our music press so innocently without even a whiff of disdain. They’ve been daubed with praise by English pens repeatedly for [...]

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Kristin Hersh’s appeal has always been that she’s a little bit crazy in the best possible way, and listening to her records is like standing over her shoulder as she frantically writes in her diary. The emotions are bare and explicit and connect through her raw and piercing voice. But her voice has changed subtlely [...]

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Restoring the beats to her arsenal, Bjork returns to her quirky, dance-oriented roots on her sixth studio album, Volta. On the experimental, conceptual Medulla, Bjork was at her most extravagantly indulgent, eschewing any semblance of commerciality in favor of the blissful sound of her own voice. Bjork literally built that record around her voice, [...]

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This Australian trio sounds like it has just discovered post-punk, playing it with a quick fuse and an urgency lacking in so many of its peers. The jagged and angular guitar work speaks to the ubiquitous Gang of Four, but, as in is the case with most post-punk, it’s the bass that leads the way. [...]

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If you can close your eyes and pretend that this album isn’t just some thinly veiled cash-cow by three people who would just as soon never look at each other as record music together, then you can almost believe it was created by a great noisy rock band in its underground heyday. So, putting all [...]

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A complacent, general snobbery has shunned Trent Reznor’s brand of industrial angst for years now, having relegated the sound over to the black-clad fruitcakes that show up at Korn shows. It’s difficult to straddle fame and integrity for any length of time, and Reznor’s allowed too many people to have a say in his business [...]

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It’s true that the moment Blonde Redhead signed with the legendary 4AD records, the band’s sound changed significantly. Sure, it could be argued that its last record for Touch and Go, 2000’s Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons, hinted at the process with a notable reliance on keyboards, but once 2004’s Misery is a Butterfly [...]

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Something about The Fratellis put me off the moment I heard them. The music is harmless enough, as they plunder everything that is trendy right now, but it just sounds too contrived in its happy-go-lucky garage-pop facade. The blatant Arctic Monkeys rip-off is just unsettling. I realize the Arctic Monkeys have sold a ridiculous amount [...]

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Kansas City’s Anodyne Records has reissued Shiner’s once-limited Making Love EP to give it the full promotional push it missed out on the first time around. Shiner’s been defunct now for four years, so I’m not sure why re-release this EP now, especially with no bonus material. Perhaps, Anodyne just wanted to do this [...]

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Low needed to get 2005’s The Great Destroyer out of its system. Too many years of turtle-paced rock would wipe any band out, so it’s no wonder Low needed a chance to turn up the volume and flesh out the rock, however briefly.
It was the first time the band had ever pushed the beats-per-minute [...]

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James Murphy wears his flawless, meticulously organized,
hipper-than-your record collection brazenly on his sleeve. He’s a DJ, so this is a matter of course. You expect as much from someone who makes a public display of his ability to amuse you with his records. What’s less obvious is that since Murphy paid such close attention to [...]

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For years, the self-involved diarrhea-diary-entry-style lyrics of Bright Eyes sent me over the edge, not to mention the fact that Conor Oberst’s affected trembling in and out of key made my skin crawl. I’m not sure of the moment I softened on the subject of Bright Eyes, but I think it was around the [...]

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Anakrid’s follow-up to the heavily percussive Father is a deliberate departure both in theme and substance. Rapture of the Deep is darker and even more claustrophobic, avoiding the former record’s primeval tribalism in favor of a thicker aural landscape that eschews modern techniques. You won’t hear any electronic bleeps or flutters, as Anakrid’s methods [...]

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Having successfully shape-shifted their way onto a major label, The Blood Brothers are reaching a pivotal point in their collective career, where they must decide what it is exactly they want. Is commercial viability a concern or is maintaining the status quo good enough? Confused teenagers are great acolytes and everything, but what is [...]

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It does seem like there’s a rash of foul-mouthed British pop singers storming our shores lately. Well, ok, two. That’s not quite a storm. But Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse have kicked up enough press in the wakes of their respective US releases of proven overseas hits to make it seem like one.

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I’ve never really understood the psyche rock tag when applied to Of Montreal. Kevin Barnes is such a succinct songwriter. His arrangements are meticulously composed and arranged, and he incorporates so many styles in his complicated pop tunes that downgrading any of it to psyche rock would be an injustice that’s not only inaccurate [...]

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I wouldn’t envy the task of following-up the accolades bestowed upon an album like Funeral. It was one of those fluke cultural bubbles, wherein a band rides a wave of impenetrable hype that escalates its record sales from 0 to pop-culture-reference-point in a matter of a few heavy-handed reviews. The trouble is The Arcade [...]

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On its Myspace page (which it hasn’t check in over a year), under the “Sounds like” section, Hella’s description reads: “If crack was music, thrown into a blender with fruits. yeah.” And, honestly, that’s not too ridiculous of a way to characterize its frenetic, musically dense, freeform sound. Your first few encounters with Hella [...]

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