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DANIEL BROCKMAN

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The Strokes | Comedown Machine

RCA (2013)
The Strokes burst out in a post-9/11 musical world with a sound that was compact and airtight, melodies coiled frictionlessly in beats and fuzzed vocals.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | March 18, 2013

KMFDM is a drug against bore

"In hindsight, honestly, it's almost impossible how it all happened."

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | March 13, 2013

Pallbearer survive extinction

We all know that there is nothing more metal than a war.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | February 20, 2013

What's F'n Next? Chvrches

Glasgow, Scotland
If you are in a band and you've heard of Chvrches, you probably hate them.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | February 01, 2013

Gliss | Langsom Dans

Modern Outsider (2013)
If rock and roll is three chords and the truth, then the mutant genre offspring shoegaze can be summed up as one chord, three fuzzboxes, and a sullen, muttered bleat.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | February 01, 2013

Bloody Hammers | Bloody Hammers

Soul Seller Records/Sacrificial (2013)
Presented as some kind of satanic pigfuck ritual, this North Carolina quartet's debut is far less doomy than advertised.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | January 29, 2013

Interview: Ian Svenonius is here to stay

Super natural
In his new book, Supernatural Strategies for Making A Rock ‘n' Roll Group (Akashic), Ian Svenonius lays out a plan for a neophyte intending to enter the world of competitive rock.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | January 22, 2013

Holy Grail | Ride the Void

Prosthetic Records (2013)
Prosthetic Records (2013)

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | January 16, 2013

Any rocker worth his salt eventually realizes the paradox of total heaviosity: even the heaviest riff requires a light touch, and moments of brutal rage become meaningless without some lightness to offset the shade.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | January 08, 2013

The soft touch of Jessie Ware

Fashioning a personal sound is a mysterious and difficult process. In Jessie Ware's case, the end result, her glistening and stirring 2012 debut, Devotion (Universal), shows just how magical this kind of alchemy can be when done right.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | January 11, 2013

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Seasonal forecast: A wintry mix of sounds from A$AP to Depeche Mode

I think that I speak for at least some kind of majority when I say "2012, don't let the door hit ya!"

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | December 21, 2012

Descending into madness: National pop of 2012

Harvests are deteriorating, polar icecaps are melting, eternal global war is a way of life, and people seem to think that Japandroids are the future of rock.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | December 18, 2012

Marvel Comics’ untold story: Interview with Sean Howe

In Sean Howe’s masterful new book, hundreds of interviews with Marvel insiders yield an intriguing tale as gripping as any X-Men story arc.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | December 06, 2012

Musical literary stocking stuffers

GIFT GUIDE 2012
The choices for books by and about rock stars are almost endless this season. Here are a few.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | December 05, 2012

Boxed and Ready: CD Box Sets

GIFT GUIDE 2012
Hey, the Rolling Stones’ 50th anniversary isn’t the only ancient history to get hopped up about this year — here are some other treasures from the vaults.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | December 05, 2012

The explosive center of Boys Noize

Electro
In recent years, the ascent of electronic music has caused some anxiety among the sensitive and the conservative.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | November 26, 2012

Lamb of God's arrested development

Lamb of God, a crew of Virginia pummelers who have been riding the rock-and-rollercoaster since their formation as Burn the Priest in 1990, had this year reached a point that veteran bands often do, when the momentum of their early, hungry stage was replaced by a machine-like state of perpetual activity.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | November 19, 2012

Kreayshawn battles back

Kreayshawn is a prime example of the type of supernova pop-star cycle that we can expect in the Internet era; not only because of her meteoric rise and almost-as-powerful backlash, but in the way that fame gives her fans and detractors alike such personal access.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | November 14, 2012