Category: Rock

  • interview by Michael McCarthy Recently Century Media Records sent me Otherwise’s new record, Peace At All Costs. As I listened to it, loving every minute of it, I could not figure out just what genre or sub-genre of metal they were. I remember going to bed thinking I’d just call them post nu metal in…

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  • Nobody likes saying anything negative about Jenny Lewis. She’s never released a bad album and has generally been a very prolific singer/songwriter, pumping out albums every couple of years — if not more often — for well over a decade now. Until recently, that is. Her new solo album, The Voyager, comes six years after…

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  • On his last couple of albums, Lenny Kravitz was all about peace and love and understanding. He all but sang about flower power. While his new tune, “Sex,” isn’t very far removed from that, it does find Kravitz’s fancy fretwork in a much more raw mode than on those records. In fact, this just might…

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  • SPC ECO: THE ART OF POP The best artists are those who are constantly changing colors like a chameleon if not downright evolving and SPC ECO make a great leap forward with The Art of Pop, an album that ditches all of those raw, distorted guitars in favor of delicious, pristine pop beats, uplifting melodies…

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  • It’s no secret that I love California-themed songs and that’s a large part of why I’m digging this new tune by Amelia Lily. But I also like it because it’s an infectious pop song with an invigorating rock edge, Lily (and whoever works with her) opting to use drums and rock guitars instead of your…

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  • Interview by Michael McCarthy Recently, I was introduced to the music of Monuments, a genre-defying band who are often mislabeled as various genres and subgenres, as you’re about to read below.  Their music was like a sonic equivalent of a rich, complex roast of coffee…  Sometimes I daydream about Starbucks using their Italian roast to…

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  • According to Wiki, the popular indietronic band I Heart Sharks’ sophomore album, Anthems, was released in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the 28th of March 2014 and received very positive reviews. But, rather than simply releasing the album in the UK, the band is releasing a must-hear EP called To Be Young on June 7th.…

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  • review by Michael McCarthy all photos by Mary Ouellette In just a short matter of four years Neon Trees has released three superb albums and toured almost constantly, making them one of the hardest working bands in the business by far. Going into their show at the House of Blues in Boston last night, I…

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  • With vocals and lyrics ripped straight out of the Kurt Cobain songbook, Allusondrugs’ vibrant “I’m Your Man” proves that they stand at the top of the pile of post grunge bands competing for the Nirvana slot when grunge finally comes back around. Of course, nothing ever sounds quite like it used to when it comes…

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  • In addition to having a lovely video, which you’re hopefully watching right now above, Beverly’s “Honey Dew” is a wonderful earworm that should make you feel all kinds of fuzzy inside and not just because it features lots of raw, fuzzy guitars, like shoegaze played with the volume on 10 with maximum distortion. Well, OK,…

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  • If Styx and Iron Maiden had a love child, Sweden’s The Dagger would be it. You can hear classic ’70’s rock in this as well as vintage ’80’s Iron Maiden. You also hear hints of Rainbow, Foreigner, Deep Purple and so many other renowned bands. But the way The Dagger mesh all of these things…

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  • I Heart Sharks first broke onto the scene — the blogosphere, especially — with their much-praised 2011 album Summer, which featured such sun-kissed, blissed-out pop rock gems as “Animals,” “Neuzeit” and the super infectious title track, “Summer.”  Now they’re primed to garner even more worldwide buzz with the release of their first EP, To Be…

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  • “In the end, I wasn’t innocent, but we could still pretend,” sings LP, an insanely talented new pop rock-ish singer/songwriter who’s bound to skyrocket to fame this year. The song in question is “Night Like This” and it’s got happiness-inducing boom clap beats and a swirly, feel good melody. Best of all, it has LP’s…

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