A month or so ago I was hanging out with an old friend I hadn’t seen in awhile. It wasn’t awkward at all, but we aren't terribly close so the conversation was hopping from one thing to another in that rudderless, silence-avoiding way it goes when you've gone through all the gossip and most of the whiskey. At some point I remember him saying “So have you heard this band Wildildlife?” and me shrugging noncommittally, thinking, neat, another indie buzz band with a shitty name I’ll have to contend with in the future. ... [continue]

There's a reason they call it Killadelphia. Although technically the tech-metal three-piece Dysrythmia currently reside in Brooklyn, Philly is both the band's original hometown and the home of its label (the indie powerhouse Relapse), and no matter how sophisticated the playing, Dysrhythmia keep both feet planted firmly in the street. ... [continue]

Jarboe is one of my favorites. She is really neat, and old, and kind of hot.... [continue]

It’s as if the over-the-top angst of the last generation of alt-rock has been sublimated into something abstract and hidden, expressed through warped songcraft rather than screaming and feedback.... [continue]

Nine Inch Nails has become less about the music and more about the new and creative ways in which it is being marketed and consumed.... [continue]

There are a variety of reasons why last month’s release of My Bloody Underground, the thirteenth album by the Brian Jonestown Massacre, wasn’t met with the reams of bated-breath publicity reserved for Portishead, another culty 90s rock band that’s been MIA for awhile. Most of them have to do with the kind of publicity the band has attracted elsewhere in its career: Anton Newcombe, the creative force behind the Massacre, is at least as notorious for his legendary onstage meltdowns, including a gig at the Viper Room in LA that was supposed to have resulted in a six-figure major label deal, as he is for his warped, postmodern take on '60s pop and psychedelia.... [continue]

Debuting as a post-Metallica thrash outfit with 1991’s Contradictions Collapse, Sweden’s Meshuggah have been refining their intractable sound to a serene balance of pummeling death metal and intricate technical sophistication. Fittingly, their latest record is called obZen, and for much of its hour-plus running time, the album does in fact bring a sense of zen-like calm to its brutally complex compositions.... [continue]

LA's Midnight Movies contented themselves with deadpan post-punk minimalism on their early singles, but Nights pulls the curtains wide open to present widescreen Technicolor rock action. The record opens and closes with a histrionic cover of the Moody Blues' renaissance-fair chestnut "Nights In White Satin" (the second version is sung in French). Complete with time changes, backup singers on the chorus, and woodwind interlude, the tune does the original justice while proving the band can afford to drop serious cash for studio time.... [continue]

Guitarist for The Golden Boys, writer, illustrator, all-purpose Renaissance dude...between these lofty pursuits and the more menial tasks of working two jobs to pay rent, John Wesley Coleman manages to keep a lot of balls in the air. In partnership with local start-up Monofonus Press, he's releasing a poetry collections/CD compilation under the title American Trashcan. ... [continue]

Here's a litmus test for whether you'll be into The Hold Steady: allegedly the band was conceived during a late-night viewing of the classic concert film about The Band, The Last Waltz, during which singer Craig Finn turned to guitarist Tad Kubler and said, "Dude, why aren't there any bands like this anymore?" Just picture his misty eyes and tell me you have no room in your heart for this man. The Steady's third album, Boys And Girls In America, earned them comparisons to both Pulp and Bruce Springsteen, and oddly enough both make sense: this unlikely-looking group of post-delinquent Brooklynites (via Minnesota) are able to summon chugging golden-age-of-rock riffs, mega-anthemic choruses, and kitchen-sink-epic lyrics about hard-luck characters and the dreams they've run into the ground, seemingly at the drop of a hat. ... [continue]

Initiated in 1996 by guitarist Makoto Kawabata, the Japanese psych-rock collective Acid Mothers Temple is a loose collective composed of four core members and a revolving door of like-minded musicians and vocalists. Both remarkably prolific (they have released over a dozen records/singles/live recordings since 2007 alone) and esoteric (they have occasionally been mistaken for a religious cult), A.M.T. traffic in a brand of hard psychedelia as indebted to their acid-fried countrymen Boredoms as to Cream or Pink Floyd and are widely considered to be the international psych-rock group. Swirling outer-space noises and oceanic reverb will factor heavily, so plan on having your third eye squeegee-ed. ... [continue]

Another day, another long list of long list of web-darling music acts and their attendant corporate sponsors.... [continue]

Baltimore duo Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, who record as Beach House, have perfected a genre unto themselves which you might call “love songs for ghosts.” Songs drift by in a haze nudged along by dusty drum machine beats, Scally’s sleepy guitar figures, and Legrand’s glassy organ playing and hypnotic vocals, which could be described and melodramatic if they sounded like they were produced by a living person. ... [continue]

Once upon a time there was a Virginian noise-pop band called Skywave, who released a tidy avalanche of washed-out fuzz-rock singles and one full-length before calling it a day in 2004. Bassist Oliver Ackerman moved to New York to form A Place To Bury Strangers and build custom guitar pedals under the banner Death By Audio, while co-Skywavers Paul Baker and John Fedowitz formed the similar-minded Ceremony and stayed behind to hold it down in Fredericksburg, VA. Skywave (and to some extent its offspring) engaged in post-psychedelic guitar mangling of the My Bloody Slowdive Chain 500 variety, featuring massively distorted guitar chords recorded inside the world’s largest underground parking garage, slamming drum machine beats, and vocal performances so completely humorless they might have been (but probably weren’t) a put-on. Seeing as how bands featuring former Skywave members are currently the talk of the town, we've put all three bands' records head-to-head to see what’s what:... [continue]

Hey everybody, we're giving away two tickets to the Liars/No Age show at the Mohawk on Saturday! Winners are also invited to a late Happy Hour (8-8:30) with Liars before the show. Details and concert entry form after the jump...but first, backstory:... [continue]

Stoner metal bands ply their thankless trade in a vacuum. Holed up in bedrooms throughout their teenage years, learning every riff from Ride The Lightning, the bands typically have technical chops but lack that inherent charisma that comes from, y'know, regular human contact. Consequently very few of these bands make it big. Occasionally a Josh Homme or Matt Pike will jump the fence from their old band into a more profitable project--Queens of the Stone Age and High on Fire, respectively--but more often than not these bands toil away strictly for the love of the game.... [continue]

Didn't Beerland already have Ground Zero Fest like three weeks ago? Didn't half these bands play Emo's Free Week? Well, you can't have too much of a good thing: in what promises to be another all-night blowout, Beerland and Emo's are co-hosting Megon Fest, featuring Austin garage-punk stalwarts Manikin, The Young, The Hex Dispensers, and nihilistic Latin punks Deskonocidos, with out-of-towners headlining each night. ... [continue]

Austinist Present IndieRoke
Wednesday, January 9th
The Mohawk (912 Red River)
10pm-2am, free
[info]