The album bounds to a start with a drum cascade firmly out of the Queens of the Stone Age bible before making a firm turn with an old-school guitar riff that devolves into sparse verses and fleshed-out choruses. “Take My Hand” follows a similar path, if lighter and prettier, that veers into snotty series of […]
rock
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Hard and ’toned
There are few modern hard rock bands that come to enjoy the wide appeal and critical acclaim that alt-metal act Deftones has over the course of its 20-plus years as a band, and the five-piece isn’t looking to slow down anytime soon. “I think the fact that people get this band is not so much […]
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Come closer
When you are having this much fun, who needs words? That must have been the thought process behind And So I Watch You from Afar, the instrumental rock act from Belfast in Northern Ireland. Armed with cheeky ’80s metal hooks sandwiched between spacious post-rock pillars, the four-piece outfit sounds like Dan Deacon covering Explosions in […]
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French connection
Certain elements of garage punks Crooked Bangs might not be the ones you’d normally expect. The trio has its roots down in the Live Music Capital of the World in Austin, Tex., but there’s a certain je ne sais quoi to what they do. “People are like, ‘You aren’t singing in English, are you?’” guitarist […]
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Go Limp
“We wanted to make a band that was so over the top and ridiculous and over-confident that no one could possibly take us seriously. So we had to throw an ode to Limp Bizkit,” singer Taylor Young said. “There’s nothing more punk rock than misspelling a word like Bizkit or Wizurdz and talking about skinning […]
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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, […]
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Gettin’ Dirty
Formed in the Texas border town of El Paso, The Dirty River Boys are an anomaly. Going against a rising tide of heavy metal acts, singer and guitarist Marco Gutierrez said the band didn’t find its home until it relocated to Austin. While he believes it was a “change that needed to happen,” the band […]
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Kings of Leon — Mechanical Bull
Contrasting the band’s first two albums (Youth & Young Manhood and Aha Shake Heartbreak) with their last two (Only by the Night and Come Around Sundown) is like comparing the Rolling Stones to One Direction. Where there used to be cunning bite, there is now mawkish arena rock, and not even the good kind. The “Southern […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Seconds
Seconds tells the story of Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph), a terminally unsatisfied and bored executive whose familiar life has grown stale. Lately, he has been in communication with a supposedly deceased friend who promises him a chance at a new life. Taking the plunge, Hamilton wanders into a shadowy corporate world of identity transplantation in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Seconds
Seconds tells the story of Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph), a terminally unsatisfied and bored executive whose familiar life has grown stale. Lately, he has been in communication with a supposedly deceased friend who promises him a chance at a new life. Taking the plunge, Hamilton wanders into a shadowy corporate world of identity transplantation in […]