Anakrid Father Stereonucleosis By: Eric Greenwood
Since the unexpected demise of Newgenics (a heavily-hyped, short-lived amalgamation of notable local musicians that put out one seven-inch on Level Plane Records), Columbia, South Carolina's Chris Bickel has kept a low profile. Well, low for Chris Bickel. Bickel still has a weekly karaoke stint, Mr. B's Goodtime Karaoke [...]

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The Replacements Don't You Know Who I Think I Was? The Best Of The Replacements Rhino By: Eric Greenwood
The Replacements just couldn't get it right. The punks wrote them off as nothing more than a drunken bar band, while the drunks in bars wrote them off as drunken punks. Nobody would claim them except [...]

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30 Seconds To Mars A Beautiful Lie Virgin By: Eric Greenwood
Jared Leto is good at one thing: looking like a sullen, androgynous golem. Ok, ok, two things: the androgynous golem thing and looking believable when his face has been pulverized, as it was in Fight Club. Leto's claim to fame is still [...]

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Gnarles Barkley St. Elsewhere Downtown By: Eric Greenwood
Calling Gnarles Barkley hip-hop is a pretty uninformed cop-out. This album is so scattered and diverse that it makes pigeon-holing this unlikely duo, comprised of mash-up sample master Danger Mouse and Goodie Mob crooner Cee-Lo, into any genre subset more than just a little difficult.
With Danger [...]

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Mission Of Burma The Obliterati Matador By: Eric Greenwood
Mission of Burma just makes all the imitators sound silly. I simply can't get over how good this record is. When the band returned in 2004 with Onoffon, over two decades after disbanding due to guitarist Roger Miller's hearing loss, I was justifiably skeptical of its [...]

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The Raconteurs Broken Boy Soldiers V2 By: Eric Greenwood
Jack White's teaming up with power-pop soloist Brendan Benson and the rhythm section of the Greenhornes hardly constitutes a "supergroup" in my book, but, perhaps, that is more a testament to White's gigantic rock star stature than it is a reflection on the current state of [...]

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The Walkmen A Hundred Miles Off Record Collection By: Eric Greenwood
Not a band to embrace stagnation, New York City's The Walkmen reacts drastically to the overwhelming praise bestowed upon its second album, Bows + Arrows, with a confident step out of the murky shadows and into a brighter, more aggressive domain without sacrificing its [...]

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Jose Gonzalez Live At Bimbo's 365 San Francisco, CA - 6/17/06 By: Kerry M
Three years after the initial release in Europe, Mr. Gonzalez is touring the US in support of his recently re-released debut album, Veneer. The name Jose Gonzalez may not be well known around these parts, but thanks to a clever [...]

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Be Your Own Pet Summer Sensation Ecstatic Peace! By: Eric Greenwood
Typically, when the UK press seizes upon a new band, it screeches all sorts of hyperbolic nonsense so loud and so often that by the time the latest "It" band hits our shores, deaf ears greet it together with a collective, anti-climactic yawn. [...]

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They Might Be Giants Venue Songs Idlewild By: Kerry M
I can still vividly recall my first introduction to the two Johns. I was at most 16 and she was most definitely in college. We were in her car running an errand for our employer and this curious song began banging from her [...]

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The Stills Without Feathers Vice By: Eric Greenwood
Cashing in on the Interpol bubble with an album so hermetically sealed in '80's alternative goth-lite, The Stills immediately polarized itself amidst a very critical underground. The stylish gloom, which obviously borrowed heavily from both The Cure and The Smiths, managed to resonate beyond mere idolatry, [...]

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Editors The Back Room Fader By: Eric Greenwood
Instead of copping the nostalgic style of its post-punk, early '80's forbearers, Editors choose simply to imitate as blatantly as possible. I suppose, for anyone who didn't grow up on Joy Division or Echo & the Bunnymen, Editors would sound refreshingly inventive amidst the more commercial fringes [...]

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Morrissey Ringleader Of The Tormentors Attack! By: Eric Greenwood
Morrissey has made his name by acting like a high maintenance drama queen for two decades now. He's cultivated his hyperbolic, schoolgirl viciousness to such a shrill degree that it's hard to be shocked any more. With 2004's You Are the Quarry, Morrissey ended [...]

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Pretty Girls Make Graves Elan Vital Matador By: Eric Greenwood
Maybe, I just haven't listened to it enough yet, but Élan Vital falls completely flat to my ears. Admittedly, I was very slow to accept The New Romance for the whip-smart musical piranha that it is, so I'm aware that Élan Vital could also [...]

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Simon Reynolds RIp It Up And Start Again: Post-punk 1978-1984 Penguin By: Eric Greenwood
“Punk seemed to be ‘over’ almost before it really got started. For many early participants, the death knell came on October 28, 1977, with the release of Never Mind the Bollocks. Had the revolution come to this, something as [...]

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Faun Fables The Transit Rider Drag City By: Eric Greenwood
Dawn McCarthy's fetishistic interpretation of long-forgotten British folk music is creepy beyond what mere words can express without auditory aids. Her two previous Drag City records, Family Album and Early Song, respectively, both revel in archetypal atmospheric folk, which were far weirder than they were [...]

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Blackalicious Interview Anti By: Eric Greenwood
Groundbreaking and influential West Coast hip hop duo, Blackalicious, passed through the University of South Carolina's campus recently for a show in the student union, supporting its third full-length, The Craft, on Epitaph subsidiary, Anti- records. I had the pleasure of speaking to the musical half of [...]

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs Show Your Bones Interscope By: Eric Greenwood
No longer buoyed by underdog hero status, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are poised for their first taste of disappointment. Not because their new album, Show Your Bones, is bad (it's not), but because the pressure to follow up the success of Fever to Tell [...]

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I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness Fear Is On Our Side Secretly Canadian By: Michael Jones
I've been hearing about the wonders of Austin, Texas' music scene foryears - The Butthole Surfers in the late '80's and an ill-conceivedshoegaze/psychedelic movement in the mid-'90's did little to convince me that anything noteworthy came from this [...]

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Band Of Horses Everything All The TIme Sub Pop By: Eric Greenwood
Band of Horses' jangly twang is borne of heartache and hope- a wistful, atmospheric blend of weathered country blues and insurgent indie rock. Columbia native Ben Bridwell's voice is slathered in reverb, and it floats above a den of shimmering guitars. [...]

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