Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

In the late 1960s a group named Iron Butterfly released an album titled IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA. On the vinyl version the title track was something like 16 minutes long and took up one side of the disc. It featured a extended (very extended) instrumental break which included a drum solo that seemed ...

Post 9.11 Western xenophobia could make acceptance of this album unlikely without first taking the masses of asses back to first grade like we did with MLK in the 1960's. If tracks like "Scientism" didn't alienate you in the nineties they certainly can today as you visualize United Airlines Flight ...

“A Passage in Time” is the debut album from Mesa, AZ natives Authority Zero. Released on Lava Records in September of 2002, it was produced by Dave Jerden (The Offspring, Alice in Chains, Jane’s Addiction, Anthrax, Social Distortion); It’s an internationally flavored eclectic mix of many sounds that show a ...

Here to save us all… from this sad state of affairs that is the Popular music culture in 2003? And how exactly to do that… free passes aboard the intergalactic fantasy flyer double timing down the deserted highway of indeterminacy and relive another 1978? Okay, I'll take the ride, but ...

So, Benzino has made another solo album. Should he have? No. I mean he sucked when he was with the Made Men but now he sucks even more now that he's alone. I'll admit that he has one or two good songs but that's about it, one or two. I ...

Before embarking on a long winded introduction to this mountainous undertaking spotlighting the storied career of a then and again Rock legend, I thought it best to begin with some "Concluding Observations" as presented on the 512th and final page of the volume as adapted and edited from The Blondie ...

During the formative years of American Hardcore few bands stand out as much as D.R.I. They, of the knee raising, elbow flapping imprint, set the pace for the flood of Skater Punk types in the early '80s that served as the starchy alternative to mainstream Metal.  If you need a ...

There are a couple of Eric Thompsons floating around northern California. This in itself wouldn't be unusual --- Eric Thompson is not exactly an unusual name --- but it's just a tad confusing, as they are both musicians, and dabble in similar genres. The older Eric Thompson has been kicking ...

Lou Barlow is one of those guys who has been around for awhile and is in the somewhat unenviable position of having been one of those artists who is better known than heard, and who at the same time has probably influenced people who have never heard of him. He ...

The merging of rock and rap is becoming more and more accepted among listeners today. It brings two worlds together and combined them to make a parent's worst nightmare, some of the most powerful music you have ever heard. Even though some are afraid to venture down this road, Grade ...

It's hard to overestimate the influence which The Velvet Underground has had upon rock music over the past...shit, it's been almost 40 years since THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO came out, and that album and what came after influenced everyone from David Bowie to Television to Dinosaur, Jr. to The ...

Houston Marchman's self-penned liner notes to his latest CD, DESPERATE MAN, contain the statement that "good songs are immortal." Marchman takes that philosophy with him throughout this fine disc full of powerful tunes that rely on lyrical storytelling and simple but fine acoustic musicianship --- guitar, bass and drum for ...

Another of the crusty Punk line of veterans from the dead, gone, back again, gimme more bullets generation of rabble rousers in tattered trousers with no dollar but plenty o' dream… Hell, I listened to this about three or four times, and I keep coming back to the second and ...

Changes 'comin by IMA is definitely prophetic! A country music lover at heart, I do love this album. It's a short, but to the point. Each of the five songs is like a chapter in a person (every person's?) life, compiling a story that women can definitely relate to! Country ...

I TALK TO THE STARS is an interesting project, being a pop project recorded in Nashville by Kellee Bradley, a Seattle native. It is misimpression that Nashville is only about country music; there is probably no other city that has a wide a variation of musical styles represented to the ...

It is inarguable, I believe, that rock 'n' roll would not exist as it exists today without Bill Monroe. While musicologists are quick to point out the influence of black southern musicians and music upon Elvis Presley, the influence of what was once best known as hillbilly music is often ...

It's hard to believe that Lyle Lovett has been in the public conscience for over 20 years now. His career has been fraught with contradictions: an artist whose country croonings have received airplay on alternative radio, whose work has been critically acclaimed even while commercial success has been wanting of ...

Ministry is basically Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker. The duo, to their credit, have covered all sorts of musical genres over the course of eight releases, putting their mark on everything from Dance to alternative to metal to industrial and back again. Their dance work pushed the envelope, sometimes enthralling, ...

The sound of the UK comes to the US to take us on a mystical ride with some of the most serene and beautiful music that has ever been recorded. Peace and tranquility never sounded so good. Prepare to do some serious soul searching and much needed spirit cleansing. Miriam ...

First time I heard 'em on 2000's "Do Things" I was blown away by the level of ease with which they conducted an otherwise confounding and inconclusive, almost unclassifiable record that lay somewhere between bedroom eyes, kissing bandits, and blaring sirens. And upon the earliest moments of their new "This ...

A band who shuns the media, with insularity and a fixed opposition to suck-sess is more quote-unquote "punk" by that idea alone, so they could be playing toe-tappin' countrified tunes about sowing your oats but NOFX would still be the real 'ting to me, and with this short release, a ...

I'll be real up front with y'all here and state at the outset that this is not my type of music. The title MIRACLES and the subtitle, A JOURNEY OF HOPE AND HEALING pretty much says it all. In the Hartlaub lexicon of plain-speaking, "healing" = "quit whining and get ...

If there was ever an aggregation (if a duo is an aggregation) that everyone thought was gonna be a one-hit wonder it was the Pet Shop Boys. They hit, "West End Girls," was square in the middle of a genre that everyone thought was going to disappear, just like rap ...

Released last October, Ra’s Universal/Republic debut, “From One,” has already become a success with its first single “Do You Call My Name” blazing up the radio charts, and the band selling out venues throughout the US on their recent tour. Musically, the band seems to embrace not one but many ...

If music has taught me anything it's that good music stays with you forever while bad music stays with you for an eternity. You'd be amazed by how many horrendous songs and albums you remember when you actually think about it. Then you have those that aren't good but they ...