Louder Now, the third album by Amityville, New York emo kids Taking Back Sunday, isn’t really “louder now.” In fact, I’m tempted to say that it might actually be more sugary than their first two albums – it’s riddled with hints of pleasing a younger, more pop-driven audience. Not that Taking Back Sunday’s earlier releases were shrouded with cryptic, brooding, off-center hymns, but there was a sense of originality and that genuine feel I got when I heard those older songs that just …

There are some genres of music that seem to grow in appeal during certain seasons. For me, melancholy-tinged indie pop (The Lucksmith’s Naturaliste, for example) is the flavor of autumn. Garage rock is usually best seasoned with a dash of snow and a lot of grey clouds. And what is one of the most palatable flavors of summer? Orchestral indie distilled in southern Scotland, a la Camera Obscura. Camera Obscura’s latest release, Let’s Get Out of This Country, has a luminously sweet flavor …

When I was just a lad, I used to spend hours listening to classic rock radio. Growing up in mid-Michigan, it’s just what you did (and still do – how many bands less than 25 years old have you seen playing Common Ground?). I’d comb the dial, flipping frantically between the Lansing area’s three oldies and three classic rock stations to find scraps of Hendrix, Zeppelin or Neil Young amidst the seemingly endless Boston, Journey and Foreigner tracks. After a while, I just gave …

I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but here it is: I, like many music listeners, spent far too many years believing Eddie Floyd’s classic, “Knock on Wood,” was recorded by Wilson Pickett. Now hold on for a second; before you accuse me of a lack of R&B credibility and storm away, the fact is, my embarrassingly long-lived mistake wasn’t too far off the mark.
Anchored by a hard-driving horn refrain and that chunky, funky Steve Cropper guitar, “Knock on Wood” is a dead ringer for …

There’s much more excitement to watching a short film than a long film: while a longer film has plenty of time to succeed or fail, the shorter film is like a burst of lightning. Either it perfectly strikes ground, leaving a substantial mark, or it flutters through the sky inconsequentially: it may look pretty, but few actually notice it. So where does David Branin’s Shoot-Out stand in this meteorological metaphor?
In terms of cinematography and direction, Shoot-Out truly does leave its mark. Never before …

The first and only time I’ve seen the Demolition Doll Rods was in the basement of my dorm, thanks to the East Quad Music Co-op. Back in those days (February 2005), whoever was scheduling the shows seemed to have just been picking acts out of a random hat. None of the bands who played that night really had much in common with one another and very few of the fans of those bands had much in common either. Frankly, the night seemed like a …

Is it just me, or with every passing year does Mudhoney sound less like the “grunge godfathers” of yore and more like a natural progression from the Asheton/Asheton/Alexander lineup of the Stooges? Granted, this observation is nothing new – singer Mark Arm’s delivery has been called “Iggyesque” about as often as his howl has been called “wolfish” or his visage “hawklike” – but since 2002′s Since We Became Translucent the tendency has begun to cross over from mere resemblance to full-on torch-passing; and with …

Being a clumsy and forgetful child (as well as having the burden, I mean blessing, of two younger siblings), I have only a few remaining relics of my youth. One of the most interesting of these is a tape my very religious babysitter had given me. I don’t remember many of the songs, nor do I remember who sang on it, but when I was four years old, I was obsessed with a song called “Patience”. It was about this man pretending he was a rabbit who kept saying, “I …