Coming off as a less Christian Crystal Lewis, Jane performs a very innocuous type of pop music that owes more to The Carpenters and Shania Twain than Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. While Jane does play acoustic guitar, another ten people join into the mix, but each individual (at least those who play instruments) sounds more like a program function of Cakewalk than an actual human being. Take the five-minute…
The eighth annual Bard SummerScape presents Judgment Day (“Der jüngste Tag”), a gripping 1937 drama by Austro-Hungarian Ödön von Horváth, one of the most talented playwrights of his generation. A runaway hit of last fall’s theater season in London, Judgment Day implicitly investigates the roots of Nazism among Austria-Hungary’s ordinary working people. The new production from acclaimed young Irish director Caitriona McLaughlin, in translation from the German by Academy Award-winner…
To be honest, it took me a few minutes to truly get into the type of music that Jaks played. By the time that the track “Damn Bloodsucker” started up, I knew that I would be a fan of their dance-noise style. The ever-present bass lines (which provide a groove all their own) and the Primus-like arrangement of “Dumbwaiter” show a band that liked to experiment with the boundaries of…
AS I LAY DYING Debut on Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart at #10 with “The Powerless Rise” Group will make nation TV debut on the Revolver Golden Gods Awards airing Saturday May 22nd on VH1 Classic BAND TO APPEAR ON “LOVELINE” TUESDAY, MAY 25 (11:00 PM PST) TO CO-HOST WITH DR. DREW PINKSY WORLD TOUR UNDERWAY! “It’s not that that they’ve changed their formula so much as honed it to…
The Jai-Alai Savant’s “Thunderstatement” gives listeners the same general feeling as if they happened on a seventies rock band’s album that has been lost for the last thirty or so years. During tracks like “Scarlett Johansson, Why Don’t You Love Me”, the band’s music really comes forth as if it was born directly from the arena rock era. The band moves up a few years to the Police-sounding title-track. Where…
10)Bizarre (Feat. Tech N9ne) – Believer 09)Big Boi – Shutterbugg 08)Bun B (Feat. Young Jeezy) – Just Like That
Aug 5 Clarkston, MI DTE Energy Center w/ Owl City & Maroon 5 Aug 6 Noblesville, IN Verizon Wireless w/ Owl City & Maroon 5 Aug 7 Canandaigua, NY Constellation Perf. Arts Center w/Owl City & Maroon 5 Aug 10 Mansfield, MA Comcast Center w/ Owl City & Maroon 5 Aug 11 Wantagh, NY Jones Beach w/ Owl City & Maroon 5 Aug 13 Bristow, VA (DC) Jiffy Lube Live…
This summer, Chromeo, the virtuosic New York and Montreal-based synth-funk duo will hit the road with the like-minded disco outfit Holy Ghost! for the Business Casual Tour presented by Green Label Sound. Leading up to the release of their long-awaited third studio album Business Casual (out August 17th on Atlantic Records), the 23-date tour kicks off Monday July 26th in Washington, DC, following their special joint performance with Daryl Hall…
In the spring of 2009, 21C Media Group launched a new image- and awareness-building program called 21C Artists To Watch for classical musicians on the brink of major careers. Through this initiative, 21C provides regular information about the artists’ activities directly to classical music tastemakers in both the industry and the media. Since its inception only a year ago, the program has developed a selective roster of some of the…
I thought when “Banned In America” started that Jade would be creating something that was an Avril clone. Don’t get me wrong, the vocal style of Jade is still something that is pop-based, but the backing instrumentation is something that is much more heavy and rock-based. This puts Jade in the position of being another Amy lee. The vocal style gives me more of a Celine Dion feel, so the…
“Triangle Folds,” taken from his sprawling DJ-Kicks mix, is the first Holden offering for over four years. Naturally it displays all of the trademark Holden musical perversions: loose, live-feeling rhythms, quirky time signatures and the bare minimum of pandering to the dictates of the conservative DJ. The track is the edited-down result of heady late night analogue jam sessions improvising on an electronic theme using his enviable modular synthesizer collection:…
“I Am The Light” starts off in a much different vein than the following tracks would indicate. This is because “Jaxbac” is a purely vocal track that rivals (but does not emulate) throat-singing, while both “Blood Doesn’t Lie” and “Nowhere To Land” approach the industrial, early-nineties goth sound without abandon. The music on tracks like “I Am The Light” seem to be drawn from the Middle Eastern tradition of music,…
The full lineup for the 11th annual installment of ProgPower USA — the largest alignment of progressive, classic and power metal bands on American soil — has been finalized for this September’s festivities. As always, the massive event, held in Atlanta, Georgia, will include a plethora of both stateside and European acts, including headlining acts Kamelot, Accept and Hammerfall, along with Turisas, Nocturnal Rites and more. This year’s festival will…
Aside from the wonderful new-plastic smell of the CD booklet, Ivy’s Butterfly strikes me at the beginning of their CD for another reason : the rich layering of vocals and the guitars unafraid to be both explorative and to rock out. Ivy’s Butterfly also provides me with a slight problem, as with Go Rimbaud, the sheer work they do on each track renders it virtually impossible to assign a generally-acceptable…
Before Derek Nicoletto started his new band, the electro/rock/pop outfit DEREK AND THE DARLING, he wrote a song called “Hustler with a Rescue Plan,” detailing where he was mentally and emotionally after the breakup of his former band, Telling on Trixie. And now, Derek and the Darling will be taking its debut EP on the road on their inaugural BALD AMBITION TOUR that kicks off this week in PIttsburgh, PA…
After 20 plus years, UK classic rock legends Wishbone Ash have released a new single, “Reason To Believe”, which is creating a huge buzz amongst the music press and fans of the band worldwide. The single is part of an EP that also features an album edit from the forthcoming CD and two superb remixes which stand out on their own. It is now available for download on iTunes. “Reason…
Throughout their 37-year career, KISS (www.KISSonline.com) has sold 80 million albums, played in front of millions of people and become an integral part of American culture. Now, rock’s most iconic band is unleashing another assault on North America with The Hottest Show on Earth tour starting on July 23. KISS will perform such classics as “Detroit Rock City” and “Rock and Roll All Nite” as well as hits that they…
The dreamy pop of Ivy is cultured, having been refined for the last decade over four albums. The music that starts off the disc, especially “Nothing But The Sky”, does not cut as deep as it could. Everything seems to traverse the same narrow swath during the 5:12 of the track, ultimately leaving a certain hollowness and lack of depth that plagues the band throughout the disc. “Thinking About You”…
9th Annual Reggae In The Desert June 12 In Downtown Las Vegas, NV Lineup Features: Barrington Levy, Sly & Robbie, Marcia Griffiths, Yellowman, Mystic Roots and Haleamano Clark County Parks and Recreation and Frederic Apcar Productions present the ninth annual Reggae in the Desert concert, which returns to the Clark County Government Center Amphitheater with a collection of acts including Barrington Levy, Sly and Robbie, Marcia Griffiths, Yellowman, Mystic Roots…
Okay, so I went into It Dies Today’s “Sirens” pretty negatively. The first verse of the first song had me making my “Eww, all yelling metal crap.” But, you guys won me back over. The growls and yelling were used tastefully, backed by vocals I actually quite enjoy. And the yelling is pretty unique; I can still make out all the lyrics. “A Port in Any Storm” actually had some…