Queens of the Stone Age : In Times New Roman

Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme has had a pretty rough decade or more. Starting clear back in the early 2010s with a surgery that nearly killed him, then working his way into a very ugly and public battle with ex-wife Brody Dalle of the Distillers. Add in the death of friend and […]

Foo Fighters : But Here We Are

Dave Grohl is one of those people you wish you were friends with. Someone you’d love to hang out with and talk about music, movies, favorite drummers, or whatever. He’s just got something about him that says ‘I’m genuine”. There’s also the fact he was in Nirvana, then tragedy hit and Nirvana was no more. […]

Ben Folds : What Matters Most

Ben Folds Five were one of those bands that you either loved or loathed. There really wasn’t an “ehh, they’re not bad” category. They hit at just the right time for me. Their cabaret-meets-punk rock-meets-power pop mash up made the 90s bearable, eliciting something close to earnestness in a sea of indifference.That is, in-between songs […]

Beach Fossils : Bunny

Beach Fossils came out of the early 2010s Captured Track scene, along with bands like Wild Nothing, Craft Spells and DIIV. Beach Fossils debut was more lo fi and bedroom pop, with band founder/songwriter Dustin Payseur’s vocals sounding as if they were emanating from a haunted conk shell residing on some melancholy shore line. The […]

Metallica : 72 Seasons

At this point Metallica have ascended to elder statesmen of rock and roll. 40 years into a career that’s seen the Bay area thrash band rewrite what it is to a be a metal band. Game-changing albums(Kill Em All through …And Justice For All) to remaking themselves as stadium filling rockers(The Black Album, Load), to […]

Yves Tumor : Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)

Yves Tumor was one of those names I’d heard in passing over the last few years, but truth be told never made it to my ears. I thought maybe it was the name of a rapper, or some strange avante garde pop artist like Arca. Turns out I was wrong and sort of in the […]

Unknown Mortal Orchestra : V

Ruban Nielson arrived on the indie music scene back in 2010 with his Unknown Mortal Orchestra project in an air of mystery. This lo-fi project made songs that sounded as if they’d been locked in a storage locker for 40 years; musty, muffled tracks that were equally built for grooving and for dropping out. Garage […]

Andy Shauf : Norm

I think it was 2017 when I came across Andy Shauf. Binging Canadian power pop dynamos Sloan, Shauf came up as a recommendation. The Saskatchewan-born Shauf’s music was this baroque pop singer/songwriter fare; sadsack tunes that borrowed from cats like Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, and early Rufus Wainwright. Shauf grew up around lots of instruments […]

White Hills : The Revenge Of Heads On Fire

White Hills are the quintessential New York rock band. They’re loud, gritty, can wear a pair of leather pants like nobody’s business, and paint musical visions of stark cityscapes and shadowy worlds that only make their presence known when the sun dies over the lower east side. Dave W and Ego Sensation are the minds […]

Kevin Hambrick : Talking Birds

Kevin Hambrick has been a staple in the Midwest music scene for 20 years, leading the indie rock charge in both The Orange Opera and as a solo artist. Regardless of which project Hambrick is writing in and for, the sound is decidedly Hambrick. With his solo work Kevin Hambrick handles all the band duties […]