Nine Inch Nails
The Slip

This one’s on me…

Four simple words were all it took for the crankiest man in mainstream rock to flip the industry on its head. Just a few months after the release of the monstrous Ghosts I-IV, Nine Inch Nails surprised us all with the first truly no-strings-attached release of the era. There’s absolutely nothing saying you have to pay for this album. You can get the album in just about any format imaginable, in some cases even better than you’d be able to get on CD. The real kicker, however, is that the album was released under a Creative Commons “Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike” license. Boiled down from the unusable legalese, this means that you can quite literally do anything you want with this material free of prosecution as long as it’s attributed to Trent Reznor and/or NIN. The release of this album might not be as high-profile or as exciting as...

Scarlett Johansson
Anywhere I Lay My Head

Like a 1st Grader Performing Macbeth.

Ask any casual music listener who has a knowledge of Tom Waits, or his famously barroom voice, and the very mention of Scarlett Johansson covering a Waits song, much less an album of Waits' classics is enough to strike significant fear/anger into said listener. Although the addition of hip producer Dave Sitek, and (God) David Bowie might be enough to quell some of the fears, the questions of Johansson's ability to properly access the music and its nuances remains. And after thoroughly investigating Anywhere I Lay My Head and its own textured nuances, the lone fact remains--

Johansson is in waaaaay over her head.

Her movies are legendary, and her image is fairly pristine (except for that whole 'sex in an elevator' thing), but Johansson, whose prior musical experience consists of...

Death Cab For Cutie
Narrow Stairs

THEY'RE ALIVE!!! THEY'RE ALIVE!!!

When Death Cab for Cutie announced in late 2006-early 2007 that they would be going on 'hiatus' to work on various other projects, both inside the music business and out, there was little doubt that the seminal indie band would return with another record at some point. However (especially for this reviewer) there was a fear that, perhaps, Death Cab's individual members would begin to outshine the groups collective effort, and their return would be a sub-par, if slightly dated, effort. The evidence was certainly there for such a situation; Ben Gibbard's side project the Postal Service was hailed as a revolution in indie-electronica, and Death Cab's Plans had the sound of a band that had lost its way. What would become of the triumphant groups future in the face of their grandiose history?

In a word: re-animation.
...

Goldfinger
Hello Destiny

It’s do or die time for Goldfinger.

Very rarely does one see such a strict delineation in quality of music as one does when looking through Goldfinger’s catalog. The core Goldfinger seen in Goldfinger, Hang-Ups, and Stomping Ground still stand the test of time. These three albums were pretty defining in my younger days and got me into finding new bands for the sake of finding new bands. Then John Feldmann became a vegan and an activist. These aren’t necessarily bad things, but Feldmann was obviously not focused on songwriting. This coupled with the departure of guitarist Charlie Paulson led to two pieces of unmitigated shit in the form of Open Your Eyes and Disconnection Notice. Usually, I think I can find at least one thing I like about pretty much any album (hell, I still listen to In With the Out Crowd regularly), but those two were...

Thrice
The Alchemy Index, Volumes III & IV: Air and Earth

Here comes the nail in the coffin.

I’ve already gone on record with what I think about the back-story behind The Alchemy Index as well as my thoughts on the first two volumes, so I’ll spare you the repetition. David Fricke of Rolling Stone’s review pretty much summed up my thoughts on the idea of The Alchemy Index as a whole: “…the cleaving of The Alchemy Index into awkward chunks of opera violates a fundamental rule of prog rock: Go all the way out, or don’t go at all.” Fire and Water certainly attempted to go into prog rock territory, but didn’t quite go ahead full steam, leading to mixed results. Now that the entirety of the experiment is out, has Thrice broke new ground or simply shot themselves in the foot?

...

R.E.M.
Accelerate

Michael Stipe Finally Got His Message Back... Do You Care?

Chances are, younger audiences might not exactly know about REM the way that lead singer Michael Stipe wants people to know about REM. Questions of diminishing relevance are pretty valid when the majority of core alternative-radio music listeners only know REM from a) the last 5 minutes of Scrubs (On which the waltzy ballad "Half a World Away" has been prominently featured), b) the oddball soundtrack to Jim Carrey's biopic of Andy Kaufman, Man on the Moon, or c) the oft misunderstood and misread, though still strangely prescient "End of the World." Sadly, Stipe, in what is the 14th (!) release for the proto-alternative band, wants you to know that his band, though it hasn't had a message since the early 90s, is still culturally important. But if he's going to make a statement, Accelerate might...

The Presidents of the United States of America
These Are the Good Times People

I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but it really seems that the current state of music is in some seriously angry territory. I think it’s more than possible that the angry, uncertain times in which we live have more than their fair share of influence on said anger. I mean, really - $100 a barrel oil, economic recession, and an arguably corrupt government don’t lend themselves to the shiny, happy people of times past. But, sometimes we need to remember that things can always get worse and just enjoy ourselves. With that, I give you The Presidents of the United States of America.

There’s a strong possibility that your only contact with The Presidents of the United States of America came about thirteen years ago when you couldn’t walk anywhere without hearing “Lump” or “Peaches”. It’s also possibly justifiable to pigeonhole the band as a one hit...

Panic At the Disco
Pretty. Odd.

Thank God They Took Off the "!"

I think we all saw this coming. We all know the 60s revival is in full swing (Steel Train, She & Him, The Format), and it was bound to have backlash in the form of an awful record or two. So when Panic at the Disco ditched their exclamation point (and their sound) for vinyl gold of yesteryear, the music industry at large began preparing for the first musical whiplash. And sure enough, Pretty. Odd. is exactly that-- bad pop whiplash.

The first thing you might notice about PO are the lyrics. Coming off a debut (2005s A Fever You Can't Sweat Out) that was so compressedly loud that you could barely make out guitarist Ryan Ross' pop-culture-isms, Panic just sound silly on their largely lo-fi sophomore album. Ross has bought into the axiom that says Sgt. Peppers era psychedelia records had...

Jason Collett
Here's to Being Here


Jason Collett is a hard working man. He's most well known as a core member of Broken Social Scene, one of the most popular and highly regarded independent bands of all time. It has been said, on more than one occasion, Collett is "the glue that holds Toronto's indie music scene together". He has several solo albums under his belt, and cameos on many band's releases. For some reason though, he's not quite a household name yet. All the other BSS-related projects, such as Kevin Drew, Stars, Metric, Feist, and Do Make Say Think, receive far more international fanfare. Why the lack of love?

The answer is simple; to be blunt and perfectly bitchy, there's not much that sets him apart from the crowd. Jason is a lovable guy, very appealing and friendly on stage, and he writes warm inviting folk-pop songs with comfortable lyrics and...

The Matches
A BAND IN hope

From the ashes of a commercial flop...

Most bands that tell you that they are not trying to become famous and/or take over the world is (mostly) lying. The Matches, on the other hand, have made it abundantly clear that they intended their sophomore album, Decomposer, to take over the music world. And why not? Shawn Harris was a lead singer that combined Freddie Mercury and Gerard Way, only performing Phantom of the Opera. And backing him were crunching guitars and bombastic drums as powerful as they were ambitious. But there was only one problem.

Decomposer didn't sell.

Dejected, Harris and company returned to the studio (or studios, as they would have it) to record what has now become A BAND IN hope (get it?). Pun aside, the Matches' third effort at world domination will once again land them short of popular...

Flogging Molly
Float

What an appropriate title…

Flogging Molly has been one of the few bands I’ve felt has never released anything less than a stellar album. Less than Jake had their In with the Out Crowd, Weezer had Weezer (2001), hell – even Rush had a stretch of crap in the late 80’s/early 90’s. This fact doesn’t diminish the bands in my mind (with the possible exception of Weezer, but that’s another story). Even the best put out a bad album every now and then….except for Flogging Molly. Each one of their albums has had boundless energy, a unique sound, and most importantly, just enough to distinctly differentiate the album from any of its brethren. This band has been one of the constants in my life since I first laid eyes and ears on them at Warped Tour 2002, playing the 1:30 slot right after Thursday finished up their set directly next to them. I’m pretty sure that no matter what...