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DANIEL BROCKMAN

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The Horrors change more than their hair

Makeover
Near the end of my conversation with Rhys Webb, bassist for Southend-on-Sea quintet the Horrors, I begin to sense the exasperation in his voice.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | September 28, 2011

Legends of the fall: The season’s 17 most anticipated albums

Björk, M83, the Metallica + Lou Reed collabo, and more
Pop culture is about manufacturing events, promoting the notion that if you aren't paying attention (and bucks) right here, right now, to this crucial content, you'll spend the rest of your life rifling through someone else's nostalgia in a desperate bid to be a part of the constant present.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | September 14, 2011

Why there won't ever be another 'Big Four' - and why that's a good thing

The state of metal
In April, thrash metal's self-billed "Big Four" — Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax — played a one-off American show in the middle of the desert in Indio, California.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | August 24, 2011

An '80s Britpop pre-history

Early echoes
The pre-history of Britpop can be traced to the early-'80s Liverpool grudge match between Echo & the Bunnymen and Julian Cope's Teardrop Explodes.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | August 17, 2011

The young punk blood of Denmark's Iceage

New noise
The big conundrum at the center of the Iceage phenomenon is one of intentionality: could vocalist Elias Rønnenfelt and Co. really have known what they were doing when they crafted New Brigade's thorny morass of no-wave HC effects-laden kicks?

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | August 10, 2011

EMA finds herself in pop's gritty depths

Bottom's up
It's a paradoxical yet undeniable truth: sometimes in order to rise above, you need to bottom out. Erika M. Anderson, now doing business as EMA, could be a poster child for the phenomenon.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | July 13, 2011

Gang Gang Dance trip the light fantastic

Everything time
Some musicians craft songs meant to elicit an emotion, and some fashion sonic mazes for the listener to get lost in. Over the course of a decade-plus career in shape-shifting psych, Brooklyn's Gang Gang Dance have found a way to do both.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | July 07, 2011

Oregon

Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Unknown Mortal Orchestra

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | July 07, 2011

Kentucky

Sleeper Agent
Sleeper Agent

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | July 07, 2011

Nadia Oh | Colours

Tiger Trax (2011)
Tiger Trax (2011)

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | June 29, 2011

Urge Overkill return to settle the rock score

Re-saturation
For Chicago hook-heavy crew Urge Overkill, who come to T.T. the Bear's on July 9, years spent assuming the posture of rock gods were scant preparation for the real thing.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | June 29, 2011

Everyone loves Dinosaur Jr.'s Bug except J Mascis

No fun
For Dinosaur Jr., an achingly melody-fueled power trio formed from the ashes of several Amherst-area hardcore bands in 1984, the pursuit of awesome came at the price of happiness, harmony, and ultimately the band itself.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | June 17, 2011

Jessica 6 | See the Light

Peacefrog (2011)
There is an odd paradox in the modern Western way of appreciating music-as-art: musical pieces that get enshrined on top of the pillar of "art" tend to be those with little-to-no practical utility. Thus, no genre is treated quite as disposably as dance music, even though much of society's fringe movers reside there.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | June 09, 2011

Melvins' King Buzzo sludges it out

Noise solution
"I have always assumed that I have good taste," explains Buzzo. "So if I like what I do, other people will like it, right?"

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | June 03, 2011

Cat's Eyes | Cat's Eyes

Polydor (2011)
It is a generally agreed upon truth that the best pop music occupies the small Venn-diagram overlap between the sacred and the profane, the itty bitty piece of real estate where our secret subconscious gets confused between which feelings belong to the Lord and those that reside Below.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | June 07, 2011

Death Cab for Cutie crack familiar Codes

Self-help manual
When I phone Walla, who's in Minneapolis with Death Cab on a tour that will bring them to the cozy Paradise a week from Sunday, he's in a reflective mood.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | May 26, 2011

tUnE-yArDs | w h o k i l l

4AD (2011)
Armed with a few delay pedals, a smattering of percussive devices, and a fucking ukelele , she creates a vocal army of one.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | May 25, 2011

Krallice | Diotima

Profound Lore (2011)
The history of pop would have you believe that music has no purpose except to make you hum along and tap your toes, the perfect soundtrack for your participation in consumer society.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | May 26, 2011

Keeping cool with early Echo & the Bunnymen

Crocodile rock
It's safe to say that the impact and importance of rock bands has often been drastically overstated.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | May 03, 2011

Will Sergeant outlines his '70s prog roots

'70s prog masterpieces recommended by Sergeant himself
When Echo & the Bunnymen emerged, in 1978, punk rock was turning the world upside down, making indulgent '70s rock instantly irrelevant with its exciting new sounds and ideas.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | May 03, 2011

live review of Kylie Minogue at Agganis Arena in Boston

Kylie Minogue brings her long-running disco to Agganis Arena

Live review: In ‘Motion
Most talk in America regarding Kylie Minogue surrounds the mystery of her lack of popularity here: while the rest of the world regards the pint-sized Aussie pop diva as a multiplatinum stadium-filler, here she is little more than an import-only dance queen known mostly for her late-‘80s hit cover of “The Loco-Motion.”

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | May 03, 2011