“…Europe has yielded a few glum-faced, overly metalized coveters of the Evanescence throne – Norway’s Octavia Sperati, Austria’s hapless, underrated Visions of Atlantis for two….”

Eric Saeger In case you haven’t already done so – these guys have been around since 1995 – add Boston band Neptune to the list of art-experimentalist novelty acts whose more heavily promoted icons include Blue Man Group and Recycled Percussion. Neptune was born, innocently enough, as an experiment in sculpture in which all the […]

“… Fresh off a one-song soundtrack appearance in the Winona Ryder vehicle “Sex And Death 101″ come North Carolina’s Baumer bearing a drywall-bucket full of curveballs….”

“…In this, Grammy award-winning piano soloist Ryuichi Sakamoto hooked up with newcomer guitar experimentalist Christopher Willits in one-take improvisations bent on soundtracking the ocean world….”

“…You know what’s funny these days, you take a band like this, strip off one guitar layer and all the hooky stuff and it’s Instant Bowery Ballroom Indie-rock with no chance in hell of ever getting mainstream love…”

“…An oddity in terms of both jazz stylings and band makeup, TJG is headed up by dreadlocked drummer Sheryl Mebane, an experimentalist in the arts of smoky-bar-jazz and African beats…”

“…There’s a segment of the accounting-undergrad listening class that can’t get enough Death Cabs and Belles & Sebastians, and, with tax time nearing, we owe it to these people to acknowledge the fact that they have ears…”

“…This jackboot-industrial twosome look and sound like they come from the wrong side of the German political tracks, but they’re in fact New Yorkers dressed in the fetish-club duds you’d kill to see at your local karaoke bar. Slowly but surely, more acts are partaking of the noxious Hitler-doom atmosphere first stolen and transmogrified from Skinny Puppy’s genius by Marilyn Manson, ie KMFDM, Combichrist, half of what Dancing Ferret Records is releasing…”

“…It’s not enough simply to let off wall-of-sound grease-fires over pretty 1960s pop songs – anybody can do that. But after listening to Lust Lust Lust with an open – okay, reverent – mind, one could argue that Dutch coed duo Raveonettes have created something not just important but essential…”

“…At first listen, Gram Rabbit’s new LP sounds veritably commercial in comparison to their last two albums, which bet their futures on weird psychedelic quasi-electro. In particular, their 2006 Cultivation album was strangely captivating – no, I’ll just say it, great – on the strength of Jessika von Rabbit’s sexy but unattainable teasing…”

“…Indie pseudo-stoner bands are forever treating your average suburban Zep/Sabbath/GNR listener the way Lucy treats Charlie Brown, pulling the football away just when the potential record buyer is about to take the plunge…”

Eric Saeger The brazen title for this mostly instrumental album could be interpreted as a tolling of the bell for many genres, not dub in particular (or barely even in passing, really; if anyone should be hearing a call-out it’s the Melvins, not Satori). The songs are genre-shish-kebabs that would in less competent hands be […]

Eric Saeger Try as you might, you may not have the right stuff to become a Juggalo, ie a card-carrying Insane Clown Posse fan capable of displaying the proper head-trauma behavior. ICP connoisseurs won’t give this best-of the time of day because it’s comprised only of songs featured in the three Island Records releases, and […]

Eric Saeger 90s geek-pixie Lisa Loeb kills a few birds by including a full CD’s worth of softball NPR-style interviews along with the first-ever digital release of The Purple Tape. One: yes, even she looks back in horror at the white dress with cowboy boots ensembles; second, back in the day, she didn’t know what […]

Eric Saeger World-music albums come and go, but virtually none get handed a fluke editor’s choice pick on Amazon.com and explode the way Dengue Fever did, winning over many bored critics in the US hipster community in a similarly inexplicable series of events. The band’s first album and Venus, their third, differ only in that […]

Eric Saeger Senior citizen Patty Larkin once wrote a song called “Not Bad for a Broad” to poke fun at the Guitar Player nerds who fawn over her talent, but the Berklee grad’s songwriting – nay, album-writing – sense far overshadows her technical ability. What a rare thing that is, and what a velvety, dense, […]

Eric Saeger Cynics the world over have long viewed Rob Halford’s predeliction for leather, studs and long-haired androgynous guitar boys as proof that there’s something snidely comical up his sleeve, that he chortles (and/or lusts) in private over the rough, tough, forked-finger-saluting Sweathogs that comprise his audience. Whether or not that’s true, sometimes the coolest […]

Eric Saeger It’s not absolutely essential to have reams of information uploaded to your skull in order to get a handle on indie hip-hop, but over the years Big Dada has been home to the most bizarre trips and aliases in the underground. Albeit a British label, the Ninja Tune-owned company has provided workout space […]

Eric Saeger It may indeed be that modern math-metal is ignored by most people, who favor instead old Zep and whatnot, but the truth is that today’s bands are “better” than their ancestors simply because they have to be. It’s part of evolutionary design. Even people who fancy themselves progressively minded write off things that […]

Eric Saeger Outside the fringes of pop culture dwell many artists whose existence is news to you regardless of their high-level accomplishments, a phenomenon suffered by jazz players more commonly than anyone else. With no small degree of casualness we tick off the list of career highlights accomplished by the individual members of the jazz […]