SOUND BITES

Conceived during a five day stretch of jams in a Hong Kong hotel and shaped into an album over a year later, it's no surprise that Blur's first album in a dozen years is a bit of a hodgepodge. However, this group has always been populated by talented men with diverse taste, so that would be expected if not assumed. It also stands to reason that, with all the musical endeavors undertaken by the group's members in the wake of their dissolution (especially Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon), perhaps The Magic Whip would bear marks of a dozen years' worth of new inspirations. In truth, The Magic Whip feels like a somewhat logical next step from 2003's Think Tank (or, in Coxon's case, 1999's 13 ), albeit a next step that's firmly rooted in the cold urban isolation that comes from spending a week or so away from home surrounded by neon and bustling metropolis. Much of the album's songs are layered with assorted noise as an allusion to the impossibility o...

  Veterans of the indie rock fringes, Built to Spill have been quietly building worthy pieces to their formidable discography for over twenty years.  Untethered Moon  marks their first album in almost six years and, as excruciating as the wait has been for fans, it seems to have certainly been for the best. Whereas previous record  There Is No Enemy  sounded a little tired and frustrated in places,  Untethered Moon  finds Built to Spill refreshed and rocking (maybe we can attribute it to the new rhythm section). Opening track  All Our Songs  comes crashing in on a jangly, muscular wave, an unashamed slice of retro that calls back Screaming Trees and '80s era R.E.M. in equal measure. Lead single  Living Zoo  has so much energy that it can't keep its foot off the pedal, accelerating over its first 90 seconds before finding a suitable cruising speed.  Never Be the Same , meanwhile, is one of their most immediate singles to date; i...

To talk about the music of Dustin Kensrue, you almost inevitably need to talk about Christianity. A devout Christian (and, until recently, worship pastor for now defunct mega-church Mars Hill), Kensrue has always woven his beliefs into both his solo music and that which he made with Thrice. This reached its apex in 2013 with the release of The Water & the Blood , an album of full-blown worship songs that preached to the converted. Now, I don't have a problem with worship music, it just doesn't interest me. For the sake of parity, I don't listen to Norwegians in corpse paint shouting incessantly about how awesome Satan is either. I prefer my religious undertones to be just that: under. That said, Dustin Kensrue's fourth official solo record is his most appealing record since the last Thrice platter four years ago because it isn't waving crosses and thumping bibles. Instead, Carry the Fire puts the music ahead of the message, from the stark acoustics of There...

Building on the success of their breakthrough debut, Alabama Shakes' second album finds them continuing to explore the deep, soulful sounds of their home turf while incorporating a somewhat experimental spirit. There isn't really anything on Sound & Color quite as immediate as breakout hit Hold On , but the album makes up for it with songs that explore and sometimes tear down their own boundaries. Take, for instance, the way the band locks into that groove during the closing moments of Dunes . Or the transformation of Gimme All Your Love from slow burning ballad to charging soul rocker. Current single Future People , meanwhile, shows The Black Keys how their last album could have sounded with a more sensible production approach. Layered but authentic, polished but rugged, it's a near perfect implementation of retro elements into a modern rock sound. It's perhaps matched by Shoegaze , a distorted amalgamation of the Stones and T-Rex as filtered through Kings o...

With their second record The Strange Case of... in 2012, Halestorm was finally rewarded for years of hard work; the massive hooks and hard rocking thump of singles like Love Bites (So Do I) and I Miss the Misery got them tons of rock radio airplay, while the profane and wildly fun ballad Here's to Us even got the Glee treatment (albeit in cuss-free fashion). The attention that Lzzy Hale commanded with her mix of raw talent and sexual energy eventually found her performing as a guest with country star Eric Church at last year's Country Music Awards. That experience looms large over third album Into the Wild Life . They recorded it in Nashville with Church's producer, and the results unsurprisingly sound like a direct result of the country connection. A handful of them (especially Amen , New Modern Love, What Sober Couldn't Say or I Like It Heavy ) are fine, well written songs that come across like templates for eventual country crossover remixes. That's only a...

After a pair of high intensity records fronted by British madman Frank Carter and the tentative reboot featuring ex-Alexisonfire member Wade McNeil, Desolation Sounds ' lead singles ( Chains and Bonfire Season ) had many fans fearing Gallows had committed the cardinal sin of going rock on album four. Truth be told, the two relatively straight forward rock songs both are and aren't indicators of what to expect from the album; there's plenty of intensity-fueled punk bombast to be had in addition to other forays into decidedly non-punk territory. Mystic Death and Swan Song bookend the album with caustic familiarity, playing like songs that could have been taken from Grey Britain if not for the lack of Frank Carter's thick accent (and the guitar playing of his brother Steph, who left the band after the self titled 2012 record). Elsewhere, brutally heavy and intense tracks Leviathan Rot , Leather Crown and 93/93 rank as some of the overall meanest tracks the band ha...

The urge to pigeonhole music is an increasingly shameful endeavor, especially when it comes to heavy music. "That's not metal!", the eternal battle cry of the tr00er-than-thou masses, has always been a stupid argument in my estimation; it doesn't matter what the label says, it's all in the way it makes you feel. That's how music is supposed to work. Crooked Doors , the sophomore album by Georgians Royal Thunder, is categorized on Google Play Music as "doom metal"; I suppose that, in a purely technical sense, you could classify some of it as such. However, there isn't really so much doom or metal to be had on this album as there is muscular classic rock and prog. Much of what you need to know going in is handled by opening track Time Machine , a ticking, thumping seven-minute odyssey that showcases the band's strengths with effortless precision. Singer/bassist Mlny Parsonz commands attention with a confident, powerful vocal while guitarists ...

Wherein the author cops to being kind of a music sexist (but don't worry, rehab is going great).

  Coming three and a half years or so after a self-titled debut that turned some heads on their home turf, Turbowolf's second album gives more insight as to why they've been referred to in some circles as the saviors of rock n' roll. Opener  Invisible Hand  gets the album going at a furious pace that turns into a mean, half speed monster before coasting into lead single  Rabbits Foot , an elastic track that's full of heavy groove.  Solid Gold  follows, a chugging, fuzzed out track with processed children's vocal effects and cheesy backup vocals that end up resulting in a bizarrely charming track tries to finds commonalities between Royal Blood and Kasabian. Current single  Nine Lives  has strut, swagger and a massive sound to match its  spectacular video . The album doesn't lose much steam until its second half, which finds the band stretching out their songs in length and scope. It gets no less intense, though;  Twelve Houses  pumm...

As far as album concepts go, there have been some far fetched ones that resulted in great records. Take Mastodon's Leviathan , a prog-metal powerhouse loosely based on Moby Dick, for instance; it shouldn't have been fantastic, but it is. Like Leviathan , affinity for the subject matter isn't essential for enjoyment, but having a working knowledge of pro wrestling (especially of the vintage southwest U.S. variety) certainly helps when listening to Beat the Champ . Especially gripping is The Legend of Chavo Guerrero ("the middleweight champ of all Mexico"), an autobiographical account of Guerrero's in-ring exploits as they related to a young John Darnielle watching on the edge of his seat from home. It's genuine, affectionate and inspired. There are several songs seen from the wrestlers' point of view; Foreign Object is particularly amusing, as the song's protagonist plans out his dastardly deeds with glee. Choked Out is swift and fiery, boasting...

It's not hard to tell what Scott Weiland's musical sweet spot is; and, on his third solo album, he's never been as committed to recalling the early '70s. His retro leanings can be traced back to his Stone Temple Pilots days through singles like Big Bang Baby and Days of the Week , but he hasn't gone all in on it like he has on Blaster . Just listen to the way he and the Wildabouts get it on (bang a gong) on Way She Moves , or calls back simultaneously to the bombastic mod of The Who and Weiland's former band's Sex Type Thing on Amethyst . There's traces of Jack Whitian (Is that a thing? I'm making that a thing.) blues on Modzilla , White Lightning and Parachutes . Then, there's the obvious homage in T. Rex cover 20th Century Boy which, as pretty much the most obvious glam cover you can do outside of David Bowie's Fame (which Weiland covered on his last record), is faithful and well performed. A few forgettable tracks aside, credit is ...