Last month, Detroit rock supergroup The Raconteurs released their highly anticipated debut album, Broken Boy Soldiers, to widespread public acclaim and a critical response that ranged from middling to ecstatic – including a decidedly middling review from our own Megan Giddings. But for those of us in the know, the idea of a Motor City answer to Blind Faith was never quite as enticing as the hysterical reports from NME had made the Raconteurs’ gestation period sound. That’s because we’d already heard …

Starlight Mints have mastered the art of the recording studio. Their latest album, Drowaton, contains guitars, pianos, synths, strings, horns, percussion, “tra la las,” and fancy-sounding gizmos, often all at the same time. These many layers never blend into a thick sound; rather, the instruments skillfully weave around one another. The album’s texture remains clear and accessible at all times.
The Mints come from the same state as the Flaming Lips, a fact they like to point out. The two bands are similar: …

Johnnie Taylor may be largely unknown now, but his influence is far-reaching, helping to form the sound of artists such as Otis Redding, Al Green, and Sam & Dave. For Taylor’s Stax Profiles collection, former News frontman Huey Lewis has compiled some of the best selections from the singer’s nearly six-decade career, covering a wide range of the genres in which Taylor experimented: R&B, blues, soul, and disco, among others.
Taylor was discovered by Sam Cooke in the early 1950s, and would later replace …

As anyone who has had the misfortune of taking a postmodern theory course knows, nothing can escape its history. And usually, this historical entrapment is the biggest downfall of most modern music: singers, as we know, have a knack for getting ensnared in the coil of their influences. So with that in mind, you might be tempted to ask who is this Destroyer, with his Tyrannosaurus Rex and Ziggy Stardust feel?
Well, listen up kids: despite the fact that this album was loved by …

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 …

If I didn’t know better, I would have guessed Young God put this split together by no more conscious a process than going down their roster alphabetically. How else to explain casting freaky folkies Akron/Family and straight laced Angels of Light as record mates? The combination sounds incongruous, both in concept and on my stereo.
I do know better, though: it’s Gira’s doing. This record really is the Michael Gira show, to the extent that you could legitimately replace every proper noun in the preceding paragraph with “Michael Gira” and come …

Mike Ladd is unique. Not because he’s crossed over from the slam to the world of hip-hop – plenty of poets are making the transition to MC. It’s because he’s also a good producer. In fact, he’s better than good. His production prowess easily outshines his skills on the mic, and while it’s not like that’s never happened before (I’m pointing at Dr. Dre, Diddy and Kanye West), it’s not something that goes on in the underground. You usually have producers and MCs, and they usually collaborate without dipping a …