You wouldn’t guess from listening to Vision Valley that the Vines have been suffering through turbulent times since their 2004 flop, Winning Days. Despite bassist Patrick Matthews’s departure, and frontman Craig Nicholls’s diagnosis with Asperger’s syndrome (which ranks with Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s disease as one of the Non-Shocking Announcements of…
The Subways, a postpubescent power-punk trio from the UK, have launched their career with the type of hype usually reserved for whoever happens to be dubbed this year’s next big deal. Critical darlings at home, they hit pay dirt when they were signed by Sire and bequeathed producer Ian Broudie…
What a difference a couple of decades make. Richard Butler’s long-awaited, self-titled debut is a perfect example of what happens when a onetime rebel rocker sheathes his barbs and opts instead for easy-listening accessibility. It’s not that Butler has sold out; these aren’t the sort of songs that populate radio…
Mike Milosh’s 2004 debut was rife with smitten, electronically generated balladry. The Toronto native crafted You Make Me Feel around bubbling, understated beats and sunkissed R&B vocal melodies, singing the praises of a burgeoning love in his life. When the courtship disintegrated, he wrote Meme, a considerably bleaker diary entry…
Bandleader and producer Johnny Otis gave DeSanto the nickname “Little Miss Sugar Pie” because she was so small, weighing only 85 pounds. But when she opened her mouth to sing, the intensity and volume of her blues-drenched vocals always stopped the show. In a career that now spans 50 years,…
Kaito’s eighth Kompakt release celebrates his relationship with deep house and trance in a lovely sequence of epic-length ambient segments steeped in welcoming synth washes, speaker-switching swirls, and unobtrusive beat touches. Hundred Million Light Years swims into more than an hour of play, with grand, sweeping finishes that push Kaito’s…
A brief perusal of the Essex Green’s photo on the Merge Website reveals the band has no business writing a should-be pop hit as 1985-centered as this one — no Vidal Sassoon damage, no heavy makeup masks, no keytars anywhere. Nonetheless out come the choppy skinny-tie guitars, entry-level synth figures,…
The Tampa-based lo-fi gophers of Home are all about volume and nookie this go-round. Pavement has always had a place on Home’s influences list, but “Push” moves beyond loose homage into adept imitation — a huffing, puffing, uphill-shove, Wowee Zowee-style pocket of fried, squealing guitars served at a relatively sexy…
One of the better things happening in town right now is the emergence of Wynwood’s Stop Miami bar. Stop offers a solid array of delicious and not-so-easy-to-find wines/beers at relatively affordable prices, as well as Asian, Spanish, and Middle Eastern gourmet finger foods. This coincides with the resurfacing of one…
Like Christopher Lee’s Dracula in the classic Hammer horror films from the early Sixties, speed metal cannot be killed off. Every time we think it’s finally dead and done, a new band comes along and resurrects the art of the endless guitar riff. Power trio High on Fire is the…
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist who, when young, earned a living playing in taverns frequented by prostitutes. He was later introduced to the great manic-depressive composer/pianist/writer Robert Schumann, who hailed Brahms a genius in an article titled “Neue Bahnen” (“New Paths”) in a German music publication. Brahms…
Do you like loud things? Then you’ll love the Oakland-based hard-rock quintet Watch Them Die. With enough tattoos to ensure they’ll never return to office work, the bandmates are stopping in Miami as part of the tour to promote their very aggressive new album, Bastard Son. Influenced by groups like…
This past March, National Public Radio presented a four-part series defining what reporter Felix Contreras called the “Latin alternative” genre. “It represents a sonic shift away from regionalism and points to a new global Latin identity,” he said, adding that record executives began coining the term “as a way to…
Ekayani, long and slender at six feet one inch tall, began her career in the early Nineties in Paris, where she was a model for fashion giants like Dior, Paco Rabanne, and Courrges. “It was hard,” she says. “You’re expected to be pretty and shut up. You have to sort…
Shrill, darkened-corridor atmospherics and nearly medicinal synth arrangements intersect on Because We Can, the rather experimental debut full-length from Australia’s Lostep. Oddly “Burma,” the most recognizable track here thanks to its inclusion on Sasha’s Involver in 2004, is the lot’s most accessible in its vibrant vocal snippets and crisp beat…
It’s often difficult to critically analyze a much-beloved artist, because the tendency is to excuse irksome traits or loathsome sonic detours simply because of past greatness. So while it’s tempting to give Morrissey a free pass for hauling in a children’s choir for several songs on his eighth solo studio…
Depictions of futuristic music in popular culture are often either cheesy and childish (think the first Star Wars movie or television’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century) or uninspired commercial trance and techno (think the Matrix trilogy). What has been lacking is a seriousness of purpose combined with serious chops…
Eef Barzelay is best known as the erstwhile leader of the power-pop combo Clem Snide, but with his first solo effort, Eef finds a new motif. Discarding the effusive sound associated with his day job, Bitter Honey is a low-key acoustic ramble that finds Barzelay shoring up his sentiments with…
Before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O strutted, spit, and cooed her way to indie-rock icon status, the last dynamic female to front a rock band was arguably Courtney Love. The grunge widow propelled Hole to stardom in the 1990s with her inimitable martyr poses and baby-doll fashion on the…
If recent breakouts by Mylo and Vitalic have proven there’s life left in house music and upbeat electronica (and they have), Idol Tryouts proves there’s also life beyond it. This double-disc set, compiled by the soothsayers at edgy Ann Arbor label Ghostly International, is split into two loosely associated categories…
Though Global Communication’s Mark Pritchard might have borrowed Dabrye’s “No Child of God (Instrumental)” for Fabric 26’s striking opener, as he borrowed the records used in his impressively selected end of the mix, it still might be the best choice here. A healthy interest in lesser-discussed MCs spices up Pritchard’s…
Don’t blame the fiery Pérez Prado for that enervating Louie Vega remake of “Mambo #5,” though you could possibly blame him for Ricky Ricardo, as well as America’s continuing obsession with the sensual Latino experience. Even James Brown’s infamous grunts and “hunh”s are echoed in the hollers of this diminutive…
