Add New York’s Bravery to the new millennium’s growing cadre of rockers who have embraced quarter-century-old new wave style and found an eager record industry to support them. The Bravery’s rise happened seemingly overnight, from their first gig in Brooklyn in late 2003 to an album in the spring of 2005. The release of The…
Robyn Hitchcock is one of pop’s great surrealists, an artist whose work has the appearance of familiarity yet none of its reassurance. While he often gets compared to poor old Syd Barrett (an acknowledged influence), this London native has closer relations outside the music world: Rene Magritte (logic-defying juxtapositions), Marcel Duchamp (dada absurdity), Edward Lear…
The world needs more bands like Madness. One of the original London perpetrators of the ska revival, they grew from a silly novelty group into full-scale international superstars, beloved by seemingly everyone in Europe, from tot to pensioner. Though diversity in contemporary music is generally laudable, the factionalism it sometimes engenders isn’t; Madness’ ability to…
For an example of shifting perceptions, consider the Cars. When their debut LP appeared in 1978, the Boston quintet was tagged as a prime commercial and critical prospect of the emerging post-punk phenomenon called new wave. In other words, they were cool and potentially popular. Then, presto! Upon release of an album, the Cars became…
Hot Hot Heat began in Victoria, British Columbia as a guitarless quartet, combining elements of punk with danceable synth-pop. Scenes One Through Thirteen collects recordings with original vocalist Matthew Marnik, which predate the band’s signing to Sub Pop. Drummer Paul Hawley and bassist Dustin Hawthorne maintain a firm sense of structure underneath Steve Bays’ creepy…
Blustery and bludgeoning, young English trio Muse is unafraid to take chances. Built up from saccharine piano wanderings and roaring merged guitars, Muse’s sound nicely fits the aims and aesthetics of charismatic leader Matt Bellamy, whose voice is both tender and audacious. While seemingly in the process of evolving from what was once operatic Radioheadedness…
Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden began playing and recording demos in 2001, during their freshman year at Wesleyan University, but didn’t get serious about music until after graduation. After releasing a homemade download-only EP as the Management, the duo shortened its name to the more text-message-friendly version when it signed with indie label Cantora in…
Formed by teenagers in the Lincolnshire town of Sleaford, taking their name from a Skip James song, the 22-20s made their mark in the UK with an energetic take on the blues. The quartet bowed in with a live EP (five originals plus a cover of Slim Harpo’s “King Bee”) and became a national sensation…
Debuting with the four-track EP Rememberese — three original songs plus a remix — this Montreal-based quartet was overshadowed by such acts as Interpol, the Killers and the Bravery, all of whom had raised their heads to look back over their shoulders at the cooler styles of the ’80s around the same time. “Still in…
Not that it necessarily means much, but Dallas rockabilly wildman Jim Heath (Horton Heat to record buyers, the Rev to his fans) sports a shit-eating grin and a hideous striped jacket on the first album, clenched eyes and a white clerical robe on the second, a screaming mouth and an AC/DC T-shirt on the third.…
Cynics may dismiss the Bay Area’s Rancid as “not the Clash, but an incredible simulation!” On the other hand, hyperbole-prone supporters might consider them the Stones to Green Day’s Beatles. (Which, if you were wondering, makes Offspring the new Herman’s Hermits.) The truth about Rancid lies somewhere in between. Yes, the quartet spends too much…
Just when new wave seemed to be bottoming out, along came Athens, Georgia’s B-52’s to rev it back up again, with distinctive junk-store ’60s visuals (Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson’s bouffant wigs — “B-52’s” in Southern regional slang) and stark, highly danceable songs with appropriately surreal kitsch lyrics. The B-52’s’ wacky sense of humor made…
The seed of the Killers was planted in late 2002, when 21-year old Brandon Flowers eyed guitarist David Keuning’s ad in a local Las Vegas newspaper. The ad called for musicians capable of helping Keuning realize a dream of an Oasis-influenced band, but Flowers was fixated on ’80s new wave, and the band became something…
When the new wave floodgates opened in the mid-’70s, all sorts of strange things flowed out. From Akron, Ohio came five neurotic overachievers (the Mothersbaugh and Casale brothers on guitars and bass, plus drummer Alan Myers) armed with an ambitious and effective robotic sound, and a carefully contrived (but intentionally inarticulate) theory about the de-evolutionary…
From Cambridge they came, in 1976: a brilliant songwriter leading a two-guitar band that revered the Byrds, the Beatles and, most of all, Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd. Some called it the start of a psychedelic revival; the Soft Boys’ verve and wild-eyed sincerity made it more of a post-psychedelic awakening. Wading Through a Ventilator shows…
Coventry’s Specials spearheaded the British ska revival in 1979, with leader/keyboard player Jerry Dammers also serving as head of 2-Tone, the band’s trendsetting label, which altered pop culture by releasing records by Madness, the Beat, Selecter and Bodysnatchers. Produced by Elvis Costello, the Specials’ debut LP also boasted the assistance of an elder statesman of…
What songs! What shoes! What a hair(line)! Look Sharp! sounded as striking as its cover photo looked, and Joe Jackson was anointed a member — alongside Graham Parker and Elvis Costello — of England’s angry young troubadours club. (It took a while to recognize how completely dissimilar the three were at the time.) Although he…
If ever a band realized the potential of pre-punk “underground” noise rock, MX-80 is it. This weird post-metal art band, which originated in Bloomington, Indiana (from the same scene that spawned the goofy Gizmos), centered around Bruce Anderson’s slashing, trebly guitar riffing and Rich Stim’s deadpan, often indecipherable, mumble. As a five-piece (with two drummers),…
Of the new millennium’s crop of danceable punk solutions — Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, the Killers et al. — London’s Bloc Party has the most creative potential. Compared to past tourmates Franz Ferdinand, with whom the band shares Gang of Four’s jagged guitar/dance beat template, Bloc Party seethes with a righteous passion and seriousness that stands…
David Bowie may no longer have a lucid plan for how to keep up with the stylistic grandchildren — his 1995 tour with Nine Inch Nails proved to be a generation-gap disaster as young Reznorfarians turned their backs on the funny old guy doing a bunch of songs that weren’t half as fuckinamazin as “Closer”…
