Booming production can’t drown out Reyna Roberts’ awe-inspiring vocals. With fire-red hair and a voice to match, Roberts is coming for her country crown in 2021. Case in point: her latest single, “Stompin’ Grounds,” with its rollicking guitars and...
I love 2020. No, really — though to be clear I don’t mean in a political, interpersonal, or general sense; only in a musical one. Only in 2020 would someone have to audacity to refer to themselves as “introspective...
I don’t know if this is a nostalgia thing for me, or perhaps something deeper and more insidious, but one of my most obsessive phases of music consisted of, for two straight years, listening to every song The Front...
Oakland band Shutup’s new EP 5 is a very adult piece of work. This isn’t to say that it is frigid or stuffy, but moreso that it provides a rollicking rock foray into the complexities of adulthood. Some of...
“I’m a busker at heart,” says Oakland’s Fantastic Negrito. “I started this [project] five years ago, busking — and I wanted to talk to people. The one thing I realized [is] that we need each other as people living...
Babe, the new album by James Wavey/Alleyes Manifest, is a worn patchwork quilt come to life in ten warm, layered tracks. “Love songs for listeners” is how Oakland’s Michael Bridgmon (Alleyes is his producer name, while James Wavey is...
Nashville-based rock band The Love-In turn despair into empowerment in the video for their new song, “As It Lays.” It’s the title track of the band’s forthcoming EP, slated for release on September 4, which centers on the concept...
Contemporary blues duo Larkin Poe channel stories of self-empowerment and community into their fierce new album, Self Made Man. Describing themselves as “first generation music makers” of their family, the sister duo of Rebecca and Megan Lovell were originally...
Kat Meoz’s gritty, high-energy rock is as motivational as it is catchy. On “Royalty,” the title track off an EP released last year, she sings about refusing to settle for less than royal treatment. “Whatever I Want,” from the...
“At school, when we would have to write an essay prompt, I would write a big essay. ‘Cause I have a lot to say,” says Alexia Roditis, lead singer of Sacramento band Destroy Boys. It would be easy (and...
On Friday, January 31, punk-rock-meets-country goddess Kalie Shorr made her debut at Nashville’s famed rock club, Exit/In, for the opening night of her first headlining trek, the Too Much to Say Tour. Throughout her 90-minute set and two-song encore,...
When Aubrie Sellers’ new album, Far From Home, is released, you’ll notice a distinct message etched into the vinyl: “We are traveling through this wild, wild land.” It’s a line from the title track that sets the pace for...
Global warming, nationalism, consumerism, addiction… the human race is having to address its own greed head on. Brothers Wade and Robin Divver formed The Endangered Species as an act of activism, the music becoming a pathway to speak their...
Listening to San Francisco band Nu Normol’s new EP, no love songs, is akin to having a cassette tape slipped through your mail slot. Peel away the Scotch tape and recycled wrapping paper and you’ll know: you’ve been visited...
After being friends for decades, former members of The Muffs, The Pandoras, and The Friggs, Kim Shattuck, Melanie Vammen, and Palmyra Delran, finally decided it was time to start their own band together. Kim and Melanie first played together...
If there’s anything Atlanta has in spades, it’s killer rock bands. But not just your good ol’ Southern Rock bands: pop-rock, metal, psychedelic… you name it, you can find it, played with soul on a dark stage in a sweaty,...
You know that feeling you get when you hear a band for the first time and think, “Hmm, they remind me of…someone?” Most of the time – for me, at least – I may never figure out who this brand...
Bay Area indie artist Tony Molina has always had either foot in two worlds, which is perhaps the only obvious observation one might make about him. He maintains deep ties to the punk and hardcore scenes in which he...
Kevin Nichols wanted to know how much time he had left on stage. “Till you puke!” cried the man behind me. This was met with silence, perhaps one nervous laugh, but I couldn’t help but appreciate the purity...
The debut EP from San Francisco-based band Thank You Come Again occupies an interesting space between old-school rock n’ roll and something newer and more intimate. EP opener “Creature” starts us off with a grungy guitar riff that takes...
In Seattle, bands are known to achieve success in unconventional ways. Unlike bands in popular music towns like L.A. and Nashville, Seattle musicians are stubborn about forging their own way in order to maintain creative control, playing music that’s...
Hailing from Windsor, Ontario, alt-rock duo The Blue Stones performed at Bunbury Music Festival earlier this month after wrapping up their headlining North American tour. This year, vocalist / guitarist Tarek Jafar and drummer Justin Tessier have followed up...
It’s easy to describe Atlanta psych-rock group MammaBear with one word: wild. The brainchild of band leader Kyle Gordon, a MammaBear show is an intense ride from start to finish, unlike anything most millennial music fans have ever experienced....
Most people would rather do almost anything than repeatedly relive their most cringe-worthy moments of adolescence and young adulthood. But writer, bassist, and storyteller Chelsea Ursin has done just that in her podcast “Dear Young Rocker,” a tell-all, diaristic recount...