Circa Survive’s Anthony Green is back, with young legs. And “Young Legs.”
rock music
a.f.i., Burials: Album Review
On afireinside’s ninth long-player, Burials, the band properly shows us why goth-emo-punk was better in small doses and the rest better off left for dead. It would seem that once a band like a.f.i. got a taste for arenas (much light Twilight vampires get a taste for teenage blood) it became hard to put that cat back in the bag. The band has chased that cat heavily on 2006’s decemberunderground and 2009’s Crash Love – wearing Joy Division, Duran Duran […]
Songs in the Key of Life: “You Get What You Give”
This edition of Songs in the Key of Life begins with a confession: I’d completely forgotten about this song for over a decade. It wasn’t until a few years ago when a student DJ played it on WIUP that I reacquainted myself with the New Radicals’ 1998 hit, “You Get What You Give.” The music video emphasizes youthful mischief-making in the face of authority and impending adulthood, and sure enough, a portion of the song’s lyrics reflect a similar sentiment. But […]
Monster Magnet, The Last Patrol: Album Review
The space lords from Red Bank, NJ have returned. They are a band that has survived into the 21st Century, are in their 24th year together and have just released their 10th, and possibly best, studio album to date. The Last Patrol, while not as trippy and psychedelic as earlier works, is every bit the signature stoner-mixed-with-classic-rock sound they’ve created their own niche for. The standard album is a taut nine songs of pure ‘Power Tripping.’ The album begins on […]
Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame 2014: Argument Time
Nirvana, welcome to the rock hall (oh, like they won’t get in…)
A Perfect Circle, By and Down: The Singles Bar Review
Fittingly, on a Monday to cure the blues away, Alt-Rock super-group A Perfect Circle return with their first new studio output in just under a decade. It’s both shocking and makes me feel incredibly old to know that it’s been that long since one of my favorite atmospheric rock band’s has made new music. I also long for them to return to the studio and continue to release beautiful music together. This track is no exception. While its emergence can […]
Reconfigured: Guns n’ Roses, Use Your Illusion
In “Reconfigured,” we take liberties with revisionism by reediting, reimagining, and resequencing a particular album or albums in an effort to reconfigure the work into a stronger whole. In 1991, Guns n’ Roses finally reemerged with the first full length album’s worth of material since their multiplatinum 1987 debut, Appetite for Destruction. The four year gap proved to be a fruitful one, as the band simultaneously released two full length LPs, totaling 30 tracks spread between them. Although well received […]
Reverend Mothers Bring Rock Back With Acolyte’s Revival EP
Rock & roll ain’t dead. Actually, it might be living in Boston.
A Few Takeaways From Matt Nathanson’s “Kinks Shirt” Video
Three minutes of slightly confusing pop/rock fun, courtesy of Matt Nathanson and…Bobcat Goldthwait?
Fall Out Boy, Ryan Adams Get Down and Dirty on New EP
When Fall Out Boy ended a four-year hiatus this spring with the release of fifth album Save Rock and Roll , audiences and critics were clearly happy to hear their unique blend of verbose, baroque pop-punk on the airwaves again. (Lead single “ My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up) ” hit No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 – rarified air for a rock band in the 2010s.) If you’d told fans they’d follow up Save Rock and Roll with a taut, grimy EP of punk tunes, it might’ve been hard to believe. […]
Reconfigured: Bob Dylan, “Infidels”
By 1983, Bob Dylan’s mid-70s creative peak of Blood on the Tracks and Desire seemed very small in the rear view mirror. Divorce, money troubles and a declining sense of artistic purpose led him to embrace a particularly strident strain of evangelical Christianity, and his resulting albums sold progressively worse while alienating more and more listeners. Whatever his spiritual convictions, his professional pride was sufficiently wounded to spur him into making something of a comeback. The result was Infidels. Produced […]
