Late last year, Baltimore-raised, Hamburg-based art-pop musician Sophia Kennedy returned after three years with "Orange Tic Tac," which saw the singer exploring a new side of her hard-hitting electronic-influenced sound. There's more where that came from as she's now announced her second album,… Read More
Calico Jim‘s songs take place mostly in rural North Georgia, where James “Pony” Bradshaw has lived for the past 15 years. The location is essential. It helps shape the characters’ temperaments and behaviors. It’s a place where people say things… Read More
As mentioned, Genghis Tron are back with a new lineup — original guitarist Hamilton Jordan and keyboardist Michael Sochynsky, plus vocalist Tony Wolski (who drums in The Armed and Old Gods) replacing Mookie Singerman and drummer Nick Yacyshyn (who drums… Read More
Boston ska-punk heroes The Mighty Mighty Bosstones have signed to Tim Armstrong's Epitaph imprint Hellcat Records, and their first single for the label is the eight-minute, guest-filled "The Final Parade," which was produced by Tim Armstrong. Dicky Barrett calls the… Read More
2000's era nu-metal/nu-grunge band Trapt made headlines through much of 2020, not for music, but for frontman Chris Taylor Brown's Trump-loving, MAGA-supporting politics. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram suspended Trapt's accounts after Brown went on a pro-Proud Boys rant, and the band also played South Dakota… Read More
“I think the idea of the leather jacket-wearing, womanizing, drug-fuelled rock star should be burned,” Charlie Steen, the frontman for London’s Shame, told The Guardian back in 2018. It was just a few days before their debut, Songs of Praise… Read More
One of the first sequences in the documentary series City So Real shows the mayoral candidates in Chicago marching in the 2018 Bud Billiken Parade, a celebration for the start of the back-to-school season in the storied Black neighborhood of… Read More
Balothizer – Cretan Smash (Louvana) <a href=”https://balothizer.bandcamp.com/album/cretan-smash”>Cretan Smash by Balothizer</a> Full disclosure: I’m cheating a bit. Balothizer’s Cretan Smash was released back in November, but the album is such a gem that it deserves everyone’s attention. Three factors make this… Read More
Éric Vuillard’s The War of the Poor lifts readers from the contemporary battlegrounds of class struggle and deposits us in the frenzy of the 16th century. The Protestant Reformers had declared war on the privileged elites of Catholicism, but the… Read More
Doesn’t everything seem a little more hopeful suddenly? I think so. Today at least. For this first Indie Basement of a new era: Toronto Pavement devotees Kiwi Jr‘s second album Cooler Returns; Brooklyn DIY punks Palberta go pop (kinda sorta) on… Read More