Tori Amos: Fade to Red
Quirky, sultry, eccentric, and moody, coupled with a unique aesthetic—the new collection of Tori Amos videos is a series of snapshots of a career that spans two decades.
Tori Amos: Strange Little Girls
The new album by Tori Amos is an experiment whereby challenges listeners with her choice of songs. Running the gamut from Joe Jackson and Tom Waits to Slayer and Depeche Mode, Amos makes unlikely selections that all fall in line after a few listens.
Tori Amos: To Venus & Back
The sprite has returned as a techno meadowlark with double cd -the first composed of new tracks, and the second of live ones. This is sure to enthrall her followers, and have a few more that are not yet Toristas hop on the bus too.
And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead: Source Tags & Codes
With its walls of guitars and raw energy, Source Tags & Codes, the third album from Texans And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead develops an uncompromising approach inherited from the Stooges, Nirvana and the Pixies.
Angels
of Light: Everything is Good Here/Please Come Home
Let's just say that the present album is great, as usual, and it seems to continue in many ways the exploration of the subjects of the last Angels of Light album.
Babyshambles: Shotter's Nation
On Shotter's Nation, Pete Doherty got more solid songs than he did in his entire career.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Take Them On Your Own
B.R.M.C. can move themselves in a violent, and at the same time astonishingly elegant territory, as if these guys wish to compensate their gangling looks with a sound that manages to stay stylish in the harshest moments and that is original despite being so clearly influenced.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Whereas any hope for the return of noisy pop seemed to have evaporated, B.R.M.C and their sharp-edged guitars suddenly come to revive the flame of noisy rock in the great tradition of The Jesus & Mary Chain and Velvet Underground.
Shirley Bassey: The Remix Album: Diamonds Are Forever
Shirley Bassey's voice is a diamond. Rich and strong, it's familiar to any Bond film devotee. Worked in to techno remixes of her classic songs, her magnificent chords are not butchered in any way.
Black Box Recorder: Passionoia
The third album from Black Box Recorder is partly a culmination of familiar Haines output and something of an evolution too, his infamous line in sunny-side-down cynicism has flowered into something faintly upbeat and funny.
Black Heart Procession: Amore Del Tropico
A departure for this notoriously sorrowful band, The Black Heart Procession's fourth album arrives from fresh from a tropical isle, dripping with criminal atmosphere and regret.
Blondie: The Curse of Blondie
Modern-era Blondie is largely unknown to me — I heard their late-1990s comeback album got universally panned — but if most of it is like The Curse of Blondie, it can't be that bad, right?
David Bowie: Heathen
An undeniable return to the source following the multiple musical adventures that have marked these last few years, Heaven is a successful and transcendental work in which Bowie resurrects his most mythical incarnations in the 21st century.
The Breeders: Mountain Battles
The Deal Sisters have popped up with an unexpectedly powerful rock'n'roll album, composed on their deep American roots.
Brides of Destruction: Here Come the Brides
To be fair, the new band Brides of Destruction has members hailing from bands more respectable than Poison or Warrant, namely, Motley Crue (bassist Nikki Six) and Guns N Roses/L.A. Guns (guitarist Tracii Guns).
Carla Bruni: No Promises
A delicate, exquisite work in which Bruni creates songs of poems by the likes of Emily Dickenson and W.H. Auden.
Buddahead: Crossing the Invisible Line
I forgive you, Raman Kia, for misspelling "Buddha" in your recording nom de plume, because your songs are deliciously catchy and well-produced, full of pleasant melodies that are predictable yet touching.
Budapest: Too Blind to Hear
A competent and gentle British rock in the vein of Travis, Coldplay and Starsailor.
Johnny Cash: American IV: The Man Comes Around
Mr. Johnny Cash has come full circle with this haunting album of original songs and covers. On this album Cash covers songs by artists as diverse as Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Hank Williams, John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Johnny Cash: American III: Solitary Man
A moving combination of original songs, country classics, and covers of modern rock, Cash crafts and whittles away each one into a unique piece that’s instinctively recognized as Cash.
Rosanne Cash: Black Cadillac
While venturing from country to rock, folk and ballads, Rosanne Cash doesn't sound like her dad or her step-mom.
Kasey Chambers: Barricades & Brickwalls
If Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams were to marry and adopt an Australian child, her name would be Kasey Chambers. There's no need to dream of such a union however. Chambers already exists and has her own talented family to boot.
Chasing Arcadia: Chasing Arcadia
Chasing Arcadia is chasing the same dream most rockers are after: money, fame, an audience for their music.
Jimmy Cliff: Best Of
Listening to Jimmy Cliff as elections near and the death toll mounts in Iraq, whether it's "Many Rivers To Cross" or "Sooner Or Later", his lyrics connect in a new way in 2004.
Coldplay: A Rush of Blood to the Head
Taking notes from their more melodramatic brethren Mansun and the Manic Street Preachers, Coldplay seem to have woken up from the dreamy stupor of Parachutes and have turned in a jangly good second effort.
Corrosion of Conformity: In the arms of God
While listening to In the Arms of God, I still got that same feeling, as if I was listening to a poor man's Metallica.
Sheryl Crow: The Very Best of Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Crow is a singer/musician who's successfully melded seventies rock, country twangs and pop sensibility while battling critics who've passed her off as just a girl who wouldn't be around very long.
Mark de Clive-Lowe: Tide's Arising
Mark de Clive-Lowe's Tide Arising immediately catches your attention with its rich arrangements, mix of genres and its strong rhythmic work.
The Delgados: Hate
Scottish quartet Delgados' Hate is a majestically uplifting album full of melancholy, sentimental strings and acoustic guitars.
Devendra Banhart: Oh Me, Oh My...
Childhood, as an element in pop music, has never had the purity that Devendra delivers. Devendra succeeds at boosting a sensation of innocence, which others can reach only briefly.
Ani Di Franco: Up Up Up Up Up Up
Our Lady of Bisexual Song has come out with yet another album, proving that she can be even more prolific than the Artist Formerly Known as Interesting. Except, of course, she does not have to write SLAVE on her cheek because she is master of her domain.
Mando Diao: Bring 'Em In
That same authentic sound of rock gone past is what the Swedish boys in Mando Diao bring to the table, a lo-fi brew of staticky guitars and lead vocals.
The Divine Comedy: Absent Friends
The Divine Comedy returns with Absent Friends, an album he originally planned to release under Neil Hannon's name as a solo album.
Luke Doucet: Outlaws (Live and Unreleased)
Somewhere on the plains of Canada's cold wastes rides a man of vim and vigor, one hand on his gee-tar, the other on a bottle of … whatever you need to get s**t-faced.
Doves: The Last Broadcast
With The Last Broadcast, the English band Doves confirms their melodic talent. Between psychedelica, pure acoustics, and vocal harmonies and saturation, they continue on their path while affirming themselves worthy heirs to Ride.
The Dresden Dolls: Yes Virginia (Dig)
The cabaret punk duet delivers a more accessible album filled with haunting songs without abandoning their Brechtien identity.
Duran Duran: Astronaut Astronaut is real Duran Duran, contrary to that 90's fluff they served us under various incarnations.
Rock Music Reviews
Backstage Passes
