Four seconds into Hard Normal Daddy, I laughed. I thought for sure Tom Jenkinson, a.k.a. Squarepusher, was going to do a note for note cover of the theme to The People’s Court. Thankfully, that’s not the case. The first track, “Coopers World,” is essentially classic jazz fusion, sans the improvisation. A […]

Big Wreck waste no time on In Loving Memory Of… making it clear exactly what kind of band they are: a loud, slightly arty post-grunge act, with a pinch of neo-prog to flavor their particular brand of hard rock. Standing just short of metal on some tracks and hinting at their love of progressive rock […]

Frodus may have helped pioneer the “spazzcore” genre with their earlier releases, including the solid Tooth and Nail release Conglomerate International, but it would be a stretch to pigeonhole their final album, And We Washed Our Weapons In The Sea, in such a narrow style. On And We Washed Our Weapons In The […]

Spoon set themselves up for failure with their 2002 release. The arrangements are strikingly sparse, the percussion is incredibly simplistic, and the musicians avoid any displays of virtuosity. There isn’t really anything conventional about “Kill the Moonlight” at all, in fact, and that is part of what makes it so impressive. […]

Sometimes you just want everything to be calm, simple, and happy. Charm School is here to help you with that. It’s exactly the kind of music you’d expect to get when a couple of computer nerds hook up with a couple of school teachers and make an album: clever, quirky, cheerful and — dare I […]

Here’s an analogy. See if you can fill in the blanks. Joe Satriani is to guitar as ______ is to harmonica. If you answered “John Popper,” you’re absolutely right. Fill in any guitar wankster, from Satriani to Steve Vai, and you’d have a suitable analogy. That’s not to say that […]