Photo Credit: Andy DeLuca From what it appears from interviews with the band, 5 Seconds of Summer is all about having a good time. Like, for instance, playing video games with your friends at your “creative retreat” in Joshua Tree while being amazed about just how clever it was to name their fifth album 5SOS5…. Read more
Photo Credit: Sonya Jasinski It’s fair to say that Michelle Branch has spent nearly two decades living in the shadow of her first two albums – 2001’s The Spirit Room and 2003’s Hotel Paper. How could she not after taking a fourteen-year break from solo output between her second and third LP? If Branch’s fourth,… Read more
To have something important to say and to know how to say it – that’s the art of succeeding with your debut album. Some debut albums have such an important message that they change the world forever. Some of them are just incredibly well executed, burning with the energy of a new artist who finally… Read more
Photo Credit: Demi Lovato via Instagram At first glance, Demi Lovato’s new rock era could seem like a gimmick – the blasphemous album title, the all-caps typeface, and of course the album cover itself; which sees Lovato sporting a pixie cut while posing in bondage on a crucifix-shaped mattress. But to those familiar with Lovato’s history,… Read more
Photo Credit: Alex Stoddard Formed in 2004 as a quartet, Panic! At The Disco became the solo act of Brendon Urie in 2015. The move caused immediate skepticism, but as a soloist, Urie has scaled heights that have surprised even his biggest critics. 2016’s Death of a Bachelor, while receiving the usual mixed critical reception… Read more
Photo Credit: Pip Upon hearing the song “Lies,” some listeners might at first think that their ears are lying to them, and that they’re not in fact listening to the opening cut from Pale Waves’ third album Unwanted, but rather to veteran pop punk princess Avril Lavigne. Indeed the similarity – of both the musical… Read more
Photo Credit: Sanjay Parikh At the relatively average album length of forty-eight minutes, there’s a heck of a lot crammed into Shinedown’s seventh full-length release. Planet Zero is a concept album with an outward science-fiction theme (a rock trend that seems to be coming back, as suggested by Bastille’s latest release Give Me the Future)…. Read more
The concept album hit its stride after the 1960s when large, well-funded bands had the cash and carte blanche to explore, at length, any idea that crossed their addled brains. Whether a bloated 1970s ineffectual gesture or a coherent and brilliant bit of storytelling, the concept album has fans and detractors in equal measure. Here… Read more
Photo Credit: Getty/Roskilde Press The post-festival discussions about the 50th edition of Scandinavia’s biggest festival have mainly dealt with the Strokes’ reportedly awful performance. I, who ended up at the festival thanks to a fortunate coincidence, had to travel back home before the Strokes, and instead of going on about Julien Casablanca’s awkward dialogues for… Read more
Photo Credit: Imagine Dragons via Instagram Las Vegas quartet Imagine Dragons have never been ‘album artists’ so to speak. Across the last decade, the band has worked with the biggest producers of the day to create mega-hit singles that become so inescapable that you ultimately have no choice but to surrender and let them lodge… Read more