Stereo Subversion

After the bizarre but ultimately effective flirtations with electronica that permeated Muse’s most recent albums, the English alternative rock trio announced their seventh full-length album, Drones, would be a return to the more primal, guitar-driven assault of their early work. Moreover, guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Matthew Bellamy mentioned in interviews it would contain a sequel to fan favorite […]

For the past several years, Grace Potter has earned her stripes as a tireless performer with her longtime musical companions, The Nocturnals. Rocking the festival circuit and releasing four major label records, the rock outfit has added fans in droves and has served as a great platform for Potter’s eclectic musicality and rocking Joplin-esque vocals. […]

Michael Angelakos’ emotive reputation precedes him. The Passion Pit front man is also sonically off-the-wall and unpredictable, an uncertainty that clouds the contents of each new album. For Kindred, Angelakos wraps his raging emotions in layers of sound and beats that surround falsetto vocals unmatched in the music industry. The newest, and perhaps most anticipated, […]

Erika Wennerstrom’s voice is Heartless Bastards’ not-so-secret weapon. Idiosyncratic yet soulful and alluring, Wennerstrom’s singing prevents many of the Bastards’ songs from sounding like nineties retreads, even if some of them could be pretty solid nineties retreads. “Gates of Dawn,” for example, certainly holds power from Wennerstrom’s smoky, slightly asexual voice, but it also yields power chords […]

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems as though the really talented artists on the market are those that refuse to be crammed into any one niche or genre. They’re the ones who can segue through a smooth singer/songwriter vibe and then rock it out on the next track. Plus, they’re also typically the artists […]

Like any good secret, by now the whole world knows of Wild Child. The Austin alt-darlings have exploded from obscurity in the span of three albums by walking a fine line between Folk, Indie, and Americana. In blending the best aspects of each into an immediately identifiable, unique vision of what popular, organic music can […]

If you’ve been tuned in to some of Nashville’s most popular solo artists to debut over the last few years, then you’ve likely crossed paths with Dustin Ransom without knowing it. The multi-instrumentalist has toured and played with plenty of notable faces — from Ben Rector and Andrew Belle to Dave Barnes and Emily West. It’s […]

Most of the time I enjoy detailing to friends (or anyone who will listen) exactly why they should listen to a particular album or artist. Most recently, I simply hit the play button for Matthew Perryman Jones. As a longtime fan, I could try to distill down the various reasons I think he’s among the […]

ZZ Ward is exactly one soulful, spoken word line into “Love 3x” before you’re standing in the midst of the lover’s quarrel she’s describing. Cops are called, plates are tossed onto the lawn, car windows are broken. As she says, “It’s a little bit insane but it feels so right.” I couldn’t have said it any […]

Having come a long way from their start in a barn next to their first recording studio, The Lighthouse and the Whaler’s third full-length album continues to carry the same sort of resounding calmness that permeates not only their past two albums, The Lighthouse and the Whaler (2009) and This is an Adventure (2012), but […]