Rating: 2 and a half stars (out of five) The Aquabats are known for their live show personas which are, if you’ll excuse the pun, pretty batshit. They pretend they’re a bunch of superheroes with crazy backstories, then stage a bunch of elaborate and choreagraphed fight scenes (*) against costumed foes while playing ska and…
Chain Gang of Love (2003) – 4 stars Pretty in Black (2005) – 2 stars Lust, Lust, Lust (2008) – 5 stars In and Out of Control (2009) – 4 stars Formed in Copenhagen, of all places, the boy-girl duo The Raveonettes re-envisions rock and roll’s past into one endlessly entertaining vision of the present. …
Emancipator’s “Soon It Will Be Cold Enough” goes down smooth much the same way albums like Metallica’s “Saint Anger” and Nirvana’s “In Utero” don’t. Perhaps the only aspect of the piece that makes it hard to digest, certainly for casual music listeners, is a lack of context surrounding the experience. The not-quite-techno, not-quite-electronica, not-quite-experimental rock…
13 Songs (1990) – 5 stars Repeater +3 Songs (1990) – 4 stars Steady Diet of Nothing (1991) – 4 stars In on the Kill Taker (1993) – 5 stars Red Medicine (1995) – 5 stars End Hits (1998) – 3.5 stars The Argument (2001) – 4 stars A “staggeringly powerful combination,” as Rolling…
Last night, the Goo Goo Dolls played the NorVa, a music club in downtown Norfolk, VA. I’ve grown up listening to the band on the radio, but never knew anything more about them. That is the perspective from which I will review their show. Names of band members have been fabricated based solely on…
Rating: 5 stars (out of 5) With War, U2 build skyscrapers upon the foundation of their debut album Boy. If the startling cover art—the same young boy staring at the viewer, only with a face of righteous anger replacing innocence—wasn’t enough of an indication, these men, just 23 at the time of release, expand upon…
Common courtesy! Here I’ve been yammering for months before properly introducing myself. Without a handshake or a how’s-your-father, I would have soapboxed myself to sleep while you smiled kindly. Please pardon me, good fellows and fellowesses. This site’s authors have set a precedent of revealing their bias to their readers up front. I have not…
Rating: 2 stars (out of five) Though it’s not a very good album, Billy Joel’s 1973 pre-major label album (*) is intensely prophetic. It signals, in some way or another, every one of Joel’s strengths and weaknesses. You’ll never revisit more than a few of these tracks, but it provides a meaningful look into the…
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006) – 4.5 stars Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007) – 4 stars Humbug (2009) – 4 stars Years before Radiohead invited yet another wave of critical fawning by offering an album for free download, the Arctic Monkeys cultivated a rabid following by giving away demos of early…
American Idiot, 5 years later (4 stars out of 5) I distinctly remember negative emotions towards American Idiot when it first came out. My habitual response is still negative. Why? The same reason any level-headed guy comes to despise a good, popular album he should like: Overexposure. Green Day immediately went from the most underrated…