Archive for April, 2006
Crystal Skulls CD Review
Crystal Skulls Outgoing Behavior (Suicide Squeeze) We can blame MTV all we want for instant gratification, quick cuts, and making “artists” give us what we pay for, but it’s worked out pretty well for the consumer. Crystal Skulls aren’t handing out anything, however.
Neko Case live!
Neko Case Vic Theatre, Chicago Friday, March 31, 2006 While the debate rages whether Fox Confessor Brings The Flood is a darker affair than 2002’s Blacklisted, Neko Case used Friday’s gig at The Vic to bring considerable levity to her material. Casting the cloak of reverential austerity aside, Case led a five-piece band through a […]
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah live!
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Metro, Chicago Monday, April 3, 2006 To say it has been a busy year for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah would be quite the understatement. An Internet phenomenon and a word-of-mouth success story, the Brooklyn quintet’s self-titled, self-released debut (unleashed in 2005) has not so quietly sold in the neighborhood […]
Beth Orton live!
Beth Orton Vic Theatre, Chicago Monday, April 3, 2006 Like she told us in our April feature, Beth Orton has been revitalized by her latest album, Comfort Of Strangers. While it did yield her best album since her debut, it also skewed her vision at the Vic on Monday and presumably on this tour. Somehow […]
Art Brut live!
Art Brut Metro, Chicago Thursday, March 30, 2006 Rock ‘N’ Roll has always been fueled by excessive ego and/or id. Oasis is the greatest band ever; just ask them. The Hives once told a capacity crowd at Metro, “Thank you Chicago! You’ve been great. And so were we.†So it was a bit odd that […]
Dresden Dolls preview
The Dresden Dolls Metro, Chicago Friday, April 7, 2006 And you thought Nickelback was out of place on Roadrunner Records? On a label known for ultra-heavy bands like Slipknot, Sepultura, and Type O Negative, Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione, the two musicians who make up The Dresden Dolls, don’t fit in. Then again, we don’t […]
Langhorne/Hunter preview
Langhorne Slim/Jana Hunter Beat Kitchen/Schubas, Chicago Friday, April 7, 2006 Langhorne Slim and Jana Hunter really don’t have much in common musically, unless you count being solo performers bastardizing old folk idioms. One’s a baby-faced loverman the other’s burdened with being the record label premiere overseen by some fanciful hipsters.
Glam preview
Boss Martians, The Sirens Viaduct Theater, Chicago Saturday, April 8, 2006 If The Darkness were an all-female band with a punk edge fronted by a Joan Jett kind of gal they wouldn’t be The Darkness, they’d be The Sirens. Opening for the next Killers-Strokes-Muse posse, Boss Martians, The Sirens justifiably may steal Saturday’s show at […]
For the record
FOR THE RECORD Last month we told you about WLUW 88.7 and their annual on-air fundraising effort. Broadcasting from the Loyola University campus, WLUW is a non-commercial community station that staffs only two full-time employees and more than 200 volunteers.
Massive missive
Massive Attack Collected (Virgin) Massive Attack were never the most popular band in trip-hop, but they were its best. Though this collection might arrive prematurely — four albums plus singles — it’s a commendable attempt to capture these easily defined yet highly elusive pioneers.
Eternally Yours
The Eternals High Anxiety EP (Aesthetics) Having gone their first two albums with an asterick overemphasizing their Trenchmouth lineage, Chicago’s Eternals let outsiders remix them and break the separations game wide open.
Float On
Anathallo Floating World (Nettwerk) Unsettling near-Sufjan Stevens, anti-showtunes grandeur hides in corners only to be drawn out via uplifting instrumentals.
Flag Bare
Anti-Flag For Blood & Empire (RCA) Taking cues from Green Day’s wildly successful American Idiot, supposed “important” punks Anti-Flag get the sloganeering machines firing.
May we holler at you?
Frog Holler Haywire (ZoBird) Somewhere in the boonies, outside Philadelphia, Frog Holler lurk with Americana reshapen for Dutch Country living.
Come To España!
Spain Colored Orange Hopelessly Incapable Of Standing In The Way EP (Lucid) Well now’s the time to be a Cuban jazz fan and in an indie rock band.
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