Dan Leroy

When he wrote the lyrics to “We Believe” four years ago, Hyro The Hero believed he’d come up with an anthem. The song, which is about the difficulty of knowing who and what to put your trust in, seemed to speak perfectly to the present moment. As he finally...

Fishbone keyboardist, trombonist and songwriter Chris Dowd is describing a creative miracle: hollandaise sauce. “You’re taking an egg and some olive oil. Two components that wouldn't mix together,” he explains, “but you whisk it together a certain way, and that causes it to bond.” Dowd, who studied ...

If there’s an award for most topical music video of the year, we should probably close the voting now. “Opaque,” by Seattle’s King Youngblood, folds today’s two major storylines—the pandemic and protests—into one striking five-minute clip. The video conflates the isolation of the...

The 2003 documentary Afro-Punk lifted the lid on how many black musicians and fans were part of punk culture. Yet even today, there persists the idea that black participation in rock music is some sort of novelty or anomaly. That disregards, of course, mountains of evidence to the contrary, going back all the way to March 1951...

ROAM Great Heights & Nosedives ROCKS LIKE: New Found Glory, Simple Plan, Blink-182 WHAT'S DIFFERENT: The difference between this album and 2016’s full-length debut, Backbone, is simply a coat of extra polish. Recording in Los Angeles with Kyle Black at the helm, this U.K. quinte ...

Algiers The Underside of Power FILE UNDER: Nonstop diversa-pop brilliance ROCKS LIKE: The Pop Group, the Veldt, TV On The Radio WHAT'S DIFFERENT: This Atlanta-based act’s 2015 debut, which gave us the sound of a soulful ghost in the post-punk machine, was rightfully called a stunner. And its ...

Machine Gun Kelly bloom ROCKS LIKE: Kid Rock, Wiz Khalifa, Everlast WHAT'S DIFFERENT: The best way to view MGK’s third studio set is through the prism of two recent tracks. One of them, of course, is “Bad Things,” the breakthrough duet with Camila Cabello that blew up last year by showcasing Kells’ softer side. bloom contains a half-doze ...

Los Angeles Police Department Los Angeles Police Department FILE UNDER: Beefed-up bedroom pop ROCKS LIKE: Elliott Smith, Daniel Johnston, Grizzly Bear WHAT'S DIFFERENT: The sense of intimacy and the country-tinged aesthetic survive from LA songwriter Ryan Pollie’s 2014 debut, which produced the left-field hit “She Came Through (Again).” But this epon ...

K.Flay Every Where Is Some Where FILE UNDER: Pop, politics, power ROCKS LIKE: Santigold, MC Lars, Lizzo WHAT'S DIFFERENT: In our Spotified world, the hard-to-classify genre-bending that used to bedevil artists like K. Flay (aka Kristine Flaherty) has now become an asset. Ev... Read More ...

Dangerkids Blacklist_ FILE UNDER: Nü-Metal Apologists ROCKS LIKE: Linkin Park, Sworn In, My Ticket Home WHAT'S DIFFERENT: The ongoing homage to Noughties nü metal remains intact from Dangerkids’ 2013 debut, Collapse, updated with occasionally spooky electronics and just enough emo vulnerability to allow for a closing ballad (“Invincible Summer”). What’s really different is that during the long wa

The Algorithm Brute Force As metal and EDM renew their periodic mating ritual (which dates back to the ’80s heyday of Ministry and continues with bands like Enter Shikari), the spawn is usually best described as “pulverizing.” But the third album from Frenchman Rémi Gallego is less brutal than bombastic, boasting an intricacy and melodicism that hearkens back to the grand old days of prog. Sure, t

Columbus, Ohio, duo twenty one pilots are proof that bands can still break big the honest, old-fashioned way. Building a following for their singular brand of hip-hop, pop, electronica and emo confessionals through tireless touring, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun became nationally known after signing to Fueled By Ramen in 2012 ...

As songwriters, David Boyd and Søren Hansen are developing a hitmaking partnership. The Danish-born, American based duo – two-thirds of the band New Politics, along with New York drummer Louis Vecchio – crafted two big singles from 2013’s A Bad Girl In Harlem. And they followed up “H ...

Columbus, Ohio, duo twenty one pilots are proof that bands can still break big the honest, old-fashioned way. Building a following for their singular brand of hip-hop, pop, electronica and emo confessionals through tireless touring, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun became nationally known after signing to Fueled By Ramen in 2012 ...

If anyone can tell you about the ups and downs of starting a new label, it’s Vinnie Fiorello. The Less Than Jake drummer and lyricist helped create Fueled By Ramen, one of the world’s most iconic alternative music labels, almost two decades ago. Since then ...

“Thank you for being my guinea pig,” jokes OK Go frontman Damian Kulash, at the end of a lengthy, but fascinating new analogy he’s just created, about the way songwriting is like a sonar device. “Now I need to get that down to a one-sentence version.” Kulash is known best, perhaps, ...

“I’ve been inhaling paint fumes all day,” confesses Kristine Flaherty. It’s not what you think; Flaherty has actually been helping paint sheds all morning as part of a Warped Tour community service project. And if you know anything about Flaherty’s musical alter ego, K.Flay, you already understand ...

Bleachers Strange Desire There’s nothing strange about fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff’s desire to take his talents solo on this side project. You’re unlikely to hear a more earnest album than Bleachers' Strange Desire this year, nor are you apt to find a release more faithful to the spirit and sound of Top 40 radio in the late, great ’80s. With the help of super-producer Vinc ...

Artifex Pereo Time In Place From Yes to Muse, bands with prog tendencies have tended to succeed by knowing exactly how far they can stray from the old-time rock ’n’ roll pulse that thumps below the grandiloquent gestures. This Louisville, Kentucky, sextet do an admirable job of anchoring their more outré leanings—expressed via such prog hallmarks as an esoteric name (it’s from a quote attributed t

Pixies Indie Cindy Watching someone grow old daily is a subtle, sometimes imperceptible process. But when a friend shows up again after more than two decades, the reunion can be a shock, and the focus is almost inevitably on what the person is now not ...