I'm not even going to pretend to be the sharpest blade in the box, particularly with respect to Eastern culture. My B-S detector, however, was giving me a three-alarm when I opened up MANTRICA and, while perusing the liner notes, found the statement "...this Sanskrit text is almost 4000 years...

I was unfamiliar with Ancient Future before I ripped the cellophane off of PLANET PASSION. My bad. These guys, with mucho changes in personnel, have been around since the '70s, before Windham Hill, before Putomayo, recording and performing what they call World Fusion music. Now that the world has caught...

The newest Boston-based Hard Rock/Punk battalions, Avoid One Thing, surge to the surface on this self-titled, contents under pressure debut that's a real kick in the ass to formulaic sneaker pimp Punk policies. Featuring bassist/vocalist Joe Gittleman of Mighty Mighty Bosstones fame and more significantly in this context, Gangreen infamy,...

Pop music has been inundated by boy bands who sing, dance, entertain and grace the covers of teen magazines.  Many of these bands lack real talent; some lack abilities to harmonize well, or utilize their vocal abilities to display a full range of emotion.  B2K is a different sort of...

"Home Sweet Home" rocks pretty hard, heavy on the three chord progressions and happy hum along harmonies-so we'll call 'em Power Pop with a punch… or if you prefer, "polished" Punk for the parenting types. There's some fan friendly, good time, uptempo character in their tunes on their current self-produced...

Singer/Songwriter Billy Bragg joins up with his band The Blokes to prove that just because he’s getting up there in years, he can still rock out like Mick Jagger. And he hasn’t lost his ability to throw out a catchy phrase or two, even if he has to remind us...

BLAZING ARROW is Blackalicious major label debut, but these gentlemen have been around for awhile. Based originally in the San Francisco Bay area, Lyricist Gift of Gab and DJ/Producer Chief Xcel of Blackalicious  were making waves on the West Coast underground scene for awhile prior to the debut of their...

Eye For An Eye… Blood For Blood, see, simple. I like the title "Outlaw Anthems," shocking it's never been used before or at least recently and never more relevant than here. The Boston-based Hard-Core trio lets the blood flow fast and furious on these eleven cuts, their swan song as...

"This record will make you want to play air guitar in front of the mirror again," reads the opening statement for Brand New Sin's brand new self-titled record. Okay, now that's something to get excited about. I take that to mean we've got some Eddie Van Halen like histrionics going...

Honing in on a more diverse list of influences, Kyuss and Fu Manchu alumnus, and all around renaissance man Bjork, returns with his long awaited follow up to "Jalamanta." He, with his "Operators," featuring the likes of fellow desert-dwellers Schneebi, Lalli, and Stahl, all from various assorted tie-died, pie-eyed highwaymen...