review

Rebuilder Sounds From The Massachusetts Turnpike ROCKS LIKE: Knuckle Puck, the Ataris, the Gaslight Anthem WHAT'S DIFFERENT: Boston’s Rebuilder have slowly been working on creating a body of work that shows different sides to pop punk. This EP has all their usual signifiers—the organ, the Blink-meets-Gaslight vibe (that still veers way more Blink)—but damned if […]

PVRIS All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell In a past life, PVRIS were a metalcore band performing under the moniker Operation Guillotine. It’s nearly impossible to imagine that five years since their inception, they’d be two stellar full-length records into a promising electro-pop rock career, made fruitful by its relationship with […]

Daybreak Death Dreams EP FILE UNDER: Formidable deathcore from Down Under ROCKS LIKE: The Acacia Strain, Blood Of The Martyrs, Hollow Earth WHAT’S DIFFERENT: Australian deathcore dynamos Daybreak continue to push the envelope on Death Dreams, the band’s latest EP offering. Stretching out the strongholds of their palpable doom and djent predilections, the band clear […]

Night Argent The Fear EP FILE UNDER: Pop-Rock Anthems ROCKS LIKE: Imagine Dragons, AWOLNATION, X Ambassadors WHAT'S DIFFERENT: Pasco, Washington, four-piece Night Argent’s sophomore EP expands on the infectious rock sound presented in their 2016 self-titled debut. Lead vocalist Chase Manhattan offers a unique kind of flow on the opening “Mannequin,” setting precedent for much […]

Broken Social Scene Hug Of Thunder FILE UNDER: (Other) Great Canadian supergroup strikes again ROCKS LIKE: Chvrches, the New Pornographers, Grizzly Bear WHAT’S DIFFERENT: It only took seven years, but they finally got the band back together—all 15 original members of the group, too, including Leslie Feist and Metric frontwoman Emily Haines. Their secret weapon […]

Stone Sour Hydrograd FILE UNDER: Hard rock as life coach ROCKS LIKE: Alice In Chains, Metallica, Sevendust   Branding himself a rock ’n’ roll Han Solo (with a leathery larynx in place of a light saber) (Han doesn't have a lightsaber, he is not a Jedi. —Star Wars obsessive ed.), Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor […]

Manchester Orchestra A Black Mile To The Surface FILE UNDER: Wondrous, widescreen rock ROCKS LIKE: Fleet Foxes, My Morning Jacket, Band Of Horses WHAT'S DIFFERENT: Where to start? A Black Mile To The Surface sounds more like the logical follow-up to 2011’s complex Simple Math than it does 2014’s nonetheless great, grungy Cope. Here, Manchester […]

Rancid Trouble Maker Rancid? Oh, them. The grumpy punk bastards who can’t be bothered to go on tour to support a record, do press for it or get in step with whatever trends are happening in contemporary music. Whatever, man. Trouble Maker, their ninth album, has 17 songs on it. How stupid is that? Any […]

CKY The Phoenix FILE UNDER: REBORN ROLLER RAGERS ROCKS LIKE: Alice In Chains, Queens Of The Stone Age, HIM WHAT’S DIFFERENT: Somewhere between now and CKY’s last album (2009’s Carver City), the acclaimed alternative-metal band suffered a schism that led to three-fourths of them keeping the name and the frontman playing his own music under […]

After years of fighting back against the oncoming tide of mobile games, Nintendo finally gave into the pressure created after the success of Pokémon Go and released Magikarp Jump, their latest Pokémon game for phones. Read more: Op-Ed: Why the ‘Pokémon Go’ update was doomed from the start Magikarp Jump is the project you forgot about […]

Tigers Jaw spin FILE UNDER: Emo rock done right ROCKS LIKE: Saves The Day, the Get Up Kids, Lemuria WHAT'S DIFFERENT: While Tigers Jaw’s lineup was overhauled in 2013, it was essentially business as usual on that year’s Charmer, with three departing members appearing on the recording. On spin, it’s all Ben Walsh and Brianna […]

The Mountain Goats Goths FILE UNDER: Spritely tunes about dark music ROCKS LIKE: Spoon, Prefab Sprout, Portastatic WHAT’S DIFFERENT: The 16th full-length by this always reliable indie-pop project finds leader John Darnielle exploring the weird and wonderful world of goths, applying the same sort of arch yet empathetic songwriting eye to this subgroup as he […]

Vinyl Theatre Origami FILE UNDER: Charismatic indie pop ROCKS LIKE: Twenty One Pilots, Two Door Cinema Club, Minus The Bear WHAT’S DIFFERENT: Vocalist Keegan Calmes takes a leap of faith with lyrics primarily about discovering mental strength from personal mistakes, thereby providing a mature perspective this time around for Vinyl Theatre. Origami exhibits true musicianship […]

John Frum A Stirring In The Noos FILE UNDER: Psychedelic death metal ROCKS LIKE: Gorguts, Gigan, Ulcerate WHAT’S DIFFERENT: Considering John Frum’s lineup—current and ex-members of the Dillinger Escape Plan, the Faceless, John Zorn and more—you’d expect the band’s debut to be an eclectic but surgically precise slab of tech-metal. A Stirring In The Noos […]

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 […]

Motionless In White Graveyard Shift FILE UNDER: Deadly heavy ROCKS LIKE: Korn, Escape The Fate, Atreyu WHAT'S DIFFERENT: Throughout their musical career, MIW have wrestled with how to create their own identity while still paying homage to their major influences. At times the struggle may have gotten the best of them, but that’s not so […]

Grayscale Adornment FILE UNDER: Infectious Pop Punk ROCKS LIKE: Man Overboard, Light Years, ROAM WHAT'S DIFFERENT: If you’re seeking your next pop-punk addiction, Grayscale will certainly oblige with Adornment. The Philadelphia-based five-piece honed in on what worked on past releases—raw storytelling and hooks—while fine-tuning their musicianship and introducing new tactics. Fresh additions include mixing it […]

Cayetana New Kind Of Normal FILE UNDER: Introspective indie-punk ROCKS LIKE: Liz Phair, P.S. Eliot, forgetters WHAT'S DIFFERENT: Cayetana refine their scrappy, poppy garage punk so immensely on their sophomore LP, they might even need recategorization. They were always adept at that sound, trembling vocals and all, but here they sound tighter, more focused, even […]

At The Drive-In in•ter a•li•a FILE UNDER: Game starters turned changers WHAT’S DIFFERENT: The passage of time didn’t dull any of the edges the members of At The Drive-In forged on their last LP, 2001’s Relationship Of Command. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Keeley Smith create tangled guitar helixes and charging riffs; frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala is one […]