It’s hard off the top of my head to imagine a more prolific and talented songwriter currently working today than John Darnielle, the creative talent at the heart of The Mountain Goats. (Bill Mallonee is the only other contender that comes to mind.) But of course, quantity is not the issue at hand, the concern…
Ever since Garbage came out of the box in 1995, the band – boasting Scottish front woman Shirley Manson and oft-lauded producer Butch Vig on drums – has created edgy alternative rock by wedding techno and electronic influences with dance-y, trip-hop rhythms and smart, crunchy power pop melodic hooks. The unique, noisy mix of singles…
If you took Melbourne’s Jackson Reid Briggs & The Heaters temperature from the opening riff on their new and fifth album, Waiting In A Corner, you would call the doctor because this band comes in hot, stays hot and never simmers. Jackson Reid Briggs’ punk style has plenty of classic rock running through their veins…
When Liz Phair’s debut album, Exile In Guyville, was released in 1993, she was a critic’s darling and an indie rock superhero for her gutsy lyrical bravado. While the album was a modest commercial success, it was named the number one album of that year by Spin Magazine and the Village Voice’s notorious Pazz &…
Reigning Sound’s singer/songwriter Greg Cartwright has returned to record a collection of power-pop tracks that get back to basics. After working in the studio with Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach for 5 tracks on 2011’s EP, “Abdication… For Your Love,” and the R&B and funk leaning “Shattered,” recorded in the Daptone’s studio in 2014. For “A…
If I was asked to name a stand-out guitarist on the indie scene today I would absolutely and confidently say Mdou Moctar. This name for sure would get blank stares from many and I would follow up my answer with something like “C’mon, you don’t know the Tuareg guitarist and songwriter Mdou Moctar? He successfully…
The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania is the 17th album for singer/songwriter Damien Jurado and first for his own label Maraqopa Records. This is an intimate affair, ten songs that capture the characters in a decisive moment in time. The brief album notes suggest it’s the “middle ground between light and shadow,” and the stripped back…
Ten studio albums and two decades into their career, any fans of The Black Keys who’ve dug in past their string of rock hits, like “Lonely Boy,” “Fever,” and “Lo/Hi,” is well aware of the band’s interest in the Mississippi delta blues music of artists like Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside. They covered a song…
One of the pleasures of advanced age is being around long enough to experience the development of a musician or artist over the course of their creative life. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s when I was writing about music out and about in St. Louis for one of the two major newsprint publications…
In 1991, when Scottish band Teenage Fanclub first broke in No. America with their third album, Bandwagonesque, their sound was brimming with electric guitars turned up so they were humming on the edge of feeding back, brisk pop song rhythms with Beatlesque hooks and harmonies, and two strong singles in “Star Sign” and “The Concept.”…
