December 1, 2005

Gang Of Four Return The Gift [5] Assuming you aren’t cemented into a turnpike on-ramp or are just hopelessly ignorant, by now you should be well familiar with Gang Of Four’s contribution to contemporary rock music. The basic components of the band’s sonic plasma — taut funk rhythms, jagged guitar scrapings and strident political invective...

Opeth Ghost Reveries [5] Not to be snobby or anything, but you can’t really be a casual Opeth fan. It takes enough work as a listener just to get past the band’s epic song lengths, let alone digest their late-period Pink Floyd overtones, before you even get to the meat of their songs; and from...

The Blackout Pact Hello Sailor [5] Much has been made of the fact that the Blackout Pact were discovered by Thursday’s Geoff Rickly in a West Village Hot Dog Shop. However, here’s hoping this anecdote-as well as the band’s offstage antics-won’t overshadow the Blackout Pact’s music, because Hello Sailor is one of the most inspired...

Franz Ferdinand You Could Have It So Much Better [5] Because my copy of Franz Ferdinand’s latest album, You Could Have It So Much Better, is secured with so much copy protection, the car stereo is the only thing I have to play it on. And I know there’s something wrong with my car’s electrical...

GOGOL BORDELLO were once the trophy band for Ukrainian nationals and bohemian NYC art freaks. Now they’re ready to crash into America’s punk-rock scene. Story: Jason Pettigrew One of the hard and fast rules of the Vans Warped Tour is that a band’s set time may not exceed 30 minutes-and for good reason: When...

They went on tour repeatedly, sleeping on the floors of sympathetic fans and watching their peers grace the cover of AP. But after making a decidedly different album, initiating a massive personal housecleaning and securing the backing of a major label, only one question remains: Will there be any way of stopping VAUX? Story: Jonah...

Long-standing melodipunk band Lagwagon have released the video for "Heartbreaking Music," the first track off their new album, Resolve. The video is a memorial to former Lagwagon drummer Derrick Plourde, who tragically took his own life earlier this year. You can view the clip in either Windows Media or QuickTime formats. Resolve was released...