Chris Parker

Ever live in a shadow? For Fruit Bats, it’s been The Shins, who have hovered over Eric Johnson’s band like an older brother. Both signed to Sub Pop in the early aughts, and the two groups express a similar appreciation for the pastoral psych folk of the ’60s, if with decidedly different levels of success. […]

Subsequent releases, like 2003’s “The Impossibility of Reason” and 2005’s self-titled release, still roared with savage riffage, but neither were as resonant. The group was slowed by a creative valley, internal tensions and the diminishing attention of its record label. After a move to growing metal-core label Ferret Music (Poison the Well, The Devil Wears […]

Subsequent releases, like 2003’s “The Impossibility of Reason” and 2005’s self-titled release, still roared with savage riffage, but neither were as resonant. The group was slowed by a creative valley, internal tensions and the diminishing attention of its record label. After a move to growing metal-core label Ferret Music (Poison the Well, The Devil Wears […]

King Buzzo speaks a truth that’s self-evident. “I’m always interested in doing something weird, whatever it may be,” said the singer/guitarist for musical iconoclasts the Melvins. EARLIEST INCARNATION BETTER THAN ITS PREDECESSOR From Roger “Buzz” Osborne’s wild, unwieldy hair to offbeat merchandise and numerous, indescribable studio albums written throughout the band’s quarter-century together, the Melvins […]

Houston’s O Pioneers!!! cook up jagged, fevered, punk-rock convulsions that rattle and thunder like it might fly apart at any moment. Front man Eric Solomon’s hoarse, hectoring scream presides over the tremulous crunch like its foreman, shouting encouragement and anguished outlines of the obstacles ahead. The shuddering pulse; stabbing, slashing guitars; and Solomon’s vocal bluster […]

King Buzzo speaks a truth that’s self-evident. “I’m always interested in doing something weird, whatever it may be,” said the singer/guitarist for musical iconoclasts the Melvins. EARLIEST INCARNATION BETTER THAN ITS PREDECESSOR From Roger “Buzz” Osborne’s wild, unwieldy hair to offbeat merchandise and numerous, indescribable studio albums written throughout the band’s quarter-century together, the Melvins […]

Houston’s O Pioneers!!! cook up jagged, fevered, punk-rock convulsions that rattle and thunder like it might fly apart at any moment. Front man Eric Solomon’s hoarse, hectoring scream presides over the tremulous crunch like its foreman, shouting encouragement and anguished outlines of the obstacles ahead. The shuddering pulse; stabbing, slashing guitars; and Solomon’s vocal bluster […]

Nothing’s come easy for theSTART, and the members are fine with that. One of the first groups to reach back into New Wave and blend it with a chunky rock crunch, its trendsetting style hasn’t yet snared the attention of other novelty acts, despite forming more than a decade ago, well before its sound was […]

Nothing’s come easy for theSTART, and the members are fine with that. One of the first groups to reach back into New Wave and blend it with a chunky rock crunch, its trendsetting style hasn’t yet snared the attention of other novelty acts, despite forming more than a decade ago, well before its sound was […]

Awesome Color is a throbbing, distortion-drenched trio drawing deeply on the rich rock heritage of its Michigan home, channeling the propulsive thunder of Detroit acts like The Stooges and MC5, and blending it with the chunky crush of noise rockers, before ladling spacey, groove-addled psychedelia on top. Although Michigan residents, the trio met and formed […]