Strangely sexy pathos intact, PJ Harvey's ghostly ethereal voice cuts right to the painful point in the opening seconds of her new disc White Chalk, purring "Soon as I'm left alone, the Devil e  

It was pure ecstasy being at the House of Blues in Los Angeles in October 2005, when the reunited Raspberries played there. We were lucky to be able to see the Raspberries, period: The early-1970s  

Carl Newman and The New Pornographers do more in 90 thrilling seconds than most groups can muster across an entire album. Take "All the Old Showstoppers" from the New Porns' epic new full-lengt  

Nothing about Broken Social Scene conforms to the odd standards that both the music industry and fans try to make all bands adhere to in some form or fashion, so it only makes sense that solo proj  

Praises be: at long last an album all about insects. Curtis Mayfield's Superfly fooled me once, the "Jitterbug" twice, but Mirah and Spectratone International answered my prayers with "Gestati  

On Earlimart's last album, 2004's Treble & Tremble, Aaron Espinoza and his rotating band of alt-gypsies (including constant bassist Adriana Murray) mollified the frantic strains of their previou  

The Section Quartet's Fuzzbox comes with advice: "TSQ recommends playing this album at an inappropriately LOUD volume because rock and roll sounds better that way." This comment aptly represent  

Nearly a decade and a half ago, guitarist Ian Moore managed to distinguish himself from the other skadillion six-stringers in Austin, Tex., scoring a plum deal with Capricorn and spending the next  

One of the unexpected highlights of the 2006 edition of South by Southwest was the frenetic Punk/Pop jangle-and-jitter of Vancouver's You Say Party! We Say Die!, a two-girl/three-guy quintet that  

It's no surprise that Okkervil River's catalog has a distinct album-to-album feel, as frontman Will Sheff has been the only consistent member since the band formed in Austin, Tex., nearly a deca  

When Tegan and Sara Quin began their musical career as a duo well over a decade ago with a trio of demos and then followed up with their debut 1999 full-length and 2000 sophomore effort -- Under F  

By a show of hands, how many people suspected that Minnie Driver's deliciously backhanded role as a small-town disc jockey in 1997's Grosse Pointe Blank was a small reflection of her own experie  

When Grace Potter writes a song, steps up to her Hammond B3 and opens her mouth to sing, she drifts through a musical wormhole and time-tunnels her way back to the days of Bonnie Raitt, when Littl  

I still crack up when I remember an interview CityBeat's Jason Gargano did with Interpol drummer Sam Fogarino around the time the band's debut masterwork, Turn on the Bright Lights, was riding h  

The six-year gap between Teddy Thompson's first two albums was more a result of scheduling than deliberation. In that span, Thompson coaxed his Folk legend mother, Linda Thompson, into the studio