Throughout rock and roll lore, there are stories of bands breaking away from familial bonds to create identities of their own. However, even though local freakout artists Stardeath and White Dwarfs are closely related to The Flaming Lips — lead singer Dennis Coyne is Wayne Coyne’s nephew — it’s a shadow that the band is more […]
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Bottle shock
Photo: Chris J. Zähller To the general public, the current face of country music is dominated by GQ models with chiseled, square jaws who are more proud of their frosted tips and designer Western-wear than their music. But not the outlaws of Norman’s Empty Bottles. Not now, not ever. “As a personal preference, I just […]
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Skin-deep
As John Lennon so perfectly put it, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. Oklahoma singer-songwriter Sherree Chamberlain knows this all too well. Back in late 2011, she successfully ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund what would be her second full-length album, released in the first half of 2012. Two […]
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Slaid, Slaid songs
Roots rocker Slaid Cleaves’ influences are all of the usual suspects expected from someone of his songwriting ilk: Jimmie Rodgers, Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen. But it was a youthful listen to one of his father’s Hank Williams albums that set Cleaves on his songwriting path. “I listened to those lonesome, sad songs, and it […]
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East meets West
Seattle’s Rose Windows cram as much into the music as they do players on stage. The seven-piece psychedelic rock outfit has concocted a wholly unique swirl of American classic rock, British prog and psychedelia with ready dabbles into Persian, Indian and Eastern European sounds, making for a worldly musical experience like few others that came […]
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Pink Pony — Whatever
Like a sweaty night in some post-apocalyptic, deep space night club, Whatever shifts from dreamy dirges (“Besides Me,” “Always Crashing in Your Car”) to sci-fi, new-wave hooks (“I’m Like You,” “Hot Hot Holiday”) over a series hushed, interstitials à la M83. The duo hits its stride in dark but still bubbly pop tracks like “Fated […]
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Seattle’s best
The Seattle-based band Pickwick has played some of the biggest venues in its hometown of Seattle — including opening day for the local professional baseball team, the Mariners — but they’ve never played a museum. It was an unexpected shock to frontman Galen Disston when the band was booked to play the Fred Jones Jr. […]
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Take shelter
It takes a private studio to keep up with Dr. Dog’s output, and heading into album eight, the Philadelphia folk outfit had officially outgrown its kennel and built a new one, basically from scratch. “We had been at our old place for seven or eight years, and it was getting kind of stale and kind […]
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Humming along
You would think that following the huge, surprising success of Silver Lake indie rock outfit Local Natives’ 2010 debut album Gorilla Manor, the four-piece would be riding high into its sophomore album. But the passing of Kelcey Ayer’s mother and the severed relationship with former bassist Andy Hamm had the band feeling quite the opposite. […]
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Power Pyramid — The God Drums
The album’s searing, swirling guitar riffs lay pinned to defiant bass grooves and drum loops, moving from pretty, tempered aggression (opener “Diving Lessons,” “Holland”) to more edgy, snarling anthems (“Runner,” “Stop Your Pulse”). Early on, Power Pyramid establishes a formula that it refuses to deviate far from, but like Beach House smothered in cigarette smoke, […]