Music Reviews: Rock

The surviving members of The Doors (Krieger and Densmore) and its management are masters of taking their legacy, a span of less than 10 active years, and milking it beyond reason for decades. As their core fanbase ages and withers into the sands of time, studio and live material continues to beireleased that one would’ve expected to already be out there. Record Store Day is the perfect venue for these ongoing excavations. Last year, engineer Bruce Botnick unearthed... Read More

ZZ Top's third, released July, 1973 was the group's breakthrough set, peaking at #8 on the crowded Billboard Top 200. "Boogie-Rock", flavored with Southern Memphisonian (is there such a word?) blues charm produced a unique blend of pulsating rhythmic drive and country charm . Perhaps that's why all these years later the album continues to find new audiences wanting to both "boogie down" and draw close to the southern ether. It's... Read More

Courtney Barnett is an Australian national treasure. The singer-songwriter’s musical style places the listener within her wandering stream of consciousness, unsheathing layers of raw vulnerability and playful wit. Her 10+ year career isn’t limited to several full-length studio efforts. It also includes a handful of EPs, an instrumental ambient film score, and a collaborative album with Philadelphia’s ‘constant hitmaker’ Kurt Vile. Creature of Habit isn’t only the... Read More

It’s always interesting to see how bands grow up, especially a band whose younger work is as juvenile as Blink-182’s. In this case, drummer Travis Barker is now dating a Kardashian, bassist/co-frontman Mark Hoppus seems to have a fairly normal existence podcasting and working on other bands’ records, and guitarist/other co-frontman Tom DeLonge co-founded To The Stars, a company dedicated to multimedia investigation and promotion of ufology, for which he has directed... Read More

From the moment Queen broke onto the music scene in the early 1970s, they were almost light-years ahead of their contemporaries. Their own brand of ‘regal rock’ was fearless, testing the boundaries of recording technology by layering harmonies and instrumentation. As if their self-titled debut from 1973 was a raucous slab that honed in on Queen’s initial hard rock foundation, the follow-up would become a major sonic leap. Queen II, released in March 1974, was as far... Read More

A buddy of mine sent me “Trinidad” when it leaked last summer. I should’ve loved it. There’s feedback, there are horns. And there’s this kid who sounds like a trombone waking up in the morning. Cameron Winter’s voice is a wiley, unpredictable instrument. Who – or what – is responsible for this? Having Television, Radiohead, and Ween on the same iPod as a thirteen-year-old? It’s either an instant turn-off or a temporary one. I tapped out after a minute-and-a-half.

Before getting to the music, here are the mysteries: the first is that though the insert shows the Ampex 499 master tape box in full sized glory with an orange sticker indicating it was baked on July 24th 2017 (as best as I can make the date out) and the 30IPS tapes are fully assembled side A and B reels, this reissue was cut from a high resolution digital file. Why? The Capitol "UDiscovermusic" website says that all records in the Vinylphyle series are cut... Read More

Ozzy Osbourne’s departure from Black Sabbath in 1979 was a catastrophic event for any metalhead. It was a long time coming, between his excessive drug/alcohol abuse and a growing disinterest in the group’s material. Ronnie James Dio, who had just fronted the first three albums of Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, became the next and second-highest-regarded vocalist for the godfathers of metal. Whereas Osbourne simply followed the melody of Tony Iommi’s guitar riffs, Dio’s... Read More

Hailing from the Great White Northern city of Toronto, Rush was one of those bands that never grandfathered themselves into one specific style. Whether it was the ‘Canadian Zeppelin’ aesthetic of their early years, crafting side-long progressive epics well into the ‘70s, or streamlining into the ‘80s with more commercial approaches, the group grew alongside their devoted audience. By 1984, the indicators of Rush’s musical evolution became more radical. Synthesizers... Read More

You license a title at 45rpm (because that's what's offered) and then the licensor releases it at 33 1/3 around the same time. These things happen. And they happen with greater frequency now. Now that vinyl has become a "thing". There was a time that the labels really didn't care much about the format and freely licensed titles to the reissue labels like Classic Records, Acoustic Sounds and the others. And they let the tapes out of the vaults.... Read More

If you'd told me my original Artisan Sound mastered Pitman pressing was up on Discogs for around $700, I'd not believe you until I looked to confirm. But it is. Not that anyone will ever buy it for such a price, but still! After listening to the new KG mastered Rhino High Fidelity reissue, I have to ask "why"? Why would you pay that much for a record that sounds distant and from the wide open spaces when you could have this for $40 bucks and with... Read More

If you’ve bought a Morrissey ticket anytime since 2012, there’s statistically a 30% chance he will cancel the show, often with little notice. This could be for any number of reasons: he’s sick or exhausted, or the venue didn’t meet his list of demands (such as removing all meat products from the premises), or he somehow has financial difficulties getting there (even when the show has sold well), or he just doesn’t feel like performing and would rather sit at the hotel... Read More

Don’t ask how because I don’t know how. But the day after Christmas, I came into possession of a piece of the Grande Ballroom.I'm afraid to touch this thing, for fear it will crumble any more. Honestly, I’m afraid to look at it. It sounds like woo-woo nonsense, but it’s got such intense energy that when I opened the box, I sat on the floor and cried. It felt like opening a tomb. Wrapped in plastic and packing tape like the body of a Lynchian sacrificial lamb was... Read More

Emerging from the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, Silversun Pickups were the ultimate 1990s throwback, embodying a sound that’s best described as ‘Smashing Pumpkins meets My Bloody Valentine.’ The alternative rock revival of the mid-2000s was perfect timing for their inception, where playing “Lazy Eye” on Guitar Hero or noticing “Little Lover’s So Polite” on the soundtrack of Jennifer’s Body turned unsuspecting teenagers into curious fans (myself included).... Read More

It’s funny to think of old, professor-type dudes in internet slop echo-chambers dictating what supposedly is and isn’t “rock-and-roll,” when age is antithetical to the “rock-and-roll” ideal itself. When Grace Slick retired from music, she declared, “All rock-and-rollers over the age of fifty look stupid and should retire.” Grace’s statement is faced with an immediate conundrum: the aging rock star. If these guys really look as dumb as she says they do on their... Read More

The scope of modern music is so vast that almost everything and anything is dubbed under a specific subgenre. In the case of Blackwater Holylight, the all-female trio are the queens of ‘doomgaze.’ Their sound is rooted in doom metal, drawing obvious influence from Monolord and Weedwater, yet interjects shoegaze overtones, akin to My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins, providing many textural layers. Coupled with introspective lyrics about vulnerability and... Read More

"This looks like a fire drill at an assisted living center" I quipped to my wife as we exited the Mayo Performing Arts Center theater and into the lobby March 13th, 2024 following Peter Frampton's energized and most enjoyable "feel good, rock hard" performance. Sorry, but that's what the audience looked like half a century later. At least we still are alive. I could give you a long list of who's not as I'm sure can many reading... Read More

If you're old enough to have bought Axis: Bold As Love when it was first released in January of 1968, and you were a stoner, you'll not likely ever forget your first spin, especially in stereo, wearing Koss Pro 4A headphones. Eddie Kramer was never shy about using the pan pots and things flew around your head and shifted left to right to left, sometimes without purpose. But it was fun, it was a free-wheeling time and Jimi had as deft a sense of humor as he... Read More