REVIEW: O’BROTHER – BASEMENT WINDOW (2012)
O’Brother may be one of the most underrated bands on the touring circuit today. The five-piece is known for performing a combination of post-rock and post-hardcore. They come across as intense in recorded form, but exponentially moreso in their live performances. After the release of two EPs, near
Review: Capsule – No Ghost (2011)
We’ve all put our music players on shuffle even though we know we want a specific kind of song or band, but are too indecisive to choose which one. So, we keep pressing next until we either find something perfect, or good enough, or smash into the car in front of us. Sometimes when goi
Review: The Felix Culpa – Sever Your Roots (2010)
Back in 2002, you knew this group knew how to make music. It’s not picking up a guitar, writing a song, and performing. They could move venues-which was easy back then when it was VFWs and roller rinks. Then others noticed to the point they were called out to California and, honestly it would be [
Review: Castevet – Summer Fences (2009)
Chicago’s Castevet has undergone musical changes, tilting the light upon vocals and away from the musical landscapes crafted in Summer Fences. I had not known this digging into 2010′s The Echo & The Light. So when the album started spinning, this revelatory illumination b
PHOTOGRAPHY: JAGUAR LOVE AND POLYSICS IN CHICAGO
The Abbey Pub on Grace and Elston is a smaller venue that hosts acts on the verge. A few years ago, I caught Heiruspecs before they began to take off (expect their first new album in years shortly) as well as O’Death earlier this year. As a venue, it’s the bridge between the Empty Bottle-ty
REVIEW: THESE ARMS ARE SNAKES – TAIL SWALLOWER AND DOVE (2008)
Lead Beater, the eighth track on Tail Swallower and Dove (Suicide Squeeze Records, 2008) lands with such a foreboding bass it’s difficult to distinguish whether speakers are trembling because of the music, or the sheer calculated viciousness These Arms Are Snakes’ approach on their lat
REVIEW: PAST LIVES – STRANGE SYMMETRY (2008)
Strange symmetry. An awkward correspondence. Although you wouldn’t label the music awkward in the common sense, but as unconventional or perhaps hesitant in the deconstruction and construction of melodies unsure of what could be. The Seattle-based specter of The Blood Brothers‘ remains,&nbs
Now & Then: Past Lives and The Blood Brothers
Earlier this week I had to justify why Gogol Bordello put on the best show I had ever seen out of the roughly 200 bands I’ve seen in my time. It’s easy to top The Faint (who’s orchestrated better than the New York Philharmonic), but I had trouble justifying how they could b