by Tim Fenster | Apr 5, 2015 | Preview
It’s too facile to call Bleachers merely a side project of fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff (or, if you’re a Girls fan, the lover of Lena Dunham). With over-the-top production and unabashedly catchy alt-rock vibes – what he describes as a merging of...
by Tim Fenster | Mar 31, 2015 | Album Review
“I don’t know where to begin,” croons perennially plaintive vocalist Benjamin Gibbard on Kintsugi, the eighth studio album from indie-rock vets Death Cab for Cutie. Indeed, with its synth flourishes and electronic left-turns, it does ring of a band that’s struggling...
by Tim Fenster | Mar 24, 2015 | Album Review
Could Earl Sweatshirt make it any clearer that he has no interest in being a chart-topping rap-star? With the release of his sophomore album, I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside, it’s pretty obvious the only right answer is no. An entirely self-produced effort...
by Tim Fenster | Mar 17, 2015 | Album Review
Over the last couple years, Modest Mouse’s new album had become arguably the most anticipated release in alternative rock. The eight-year gap so soon after their mid-aught heyday was made all the more intriguing by the bits of news that did emerge. Smiths...
by Tim Fenster | Mar 6, 2015 | Preview
The massively influential rock musician, singer and songwriter Lou Reed may have passed in October 2013 – succumbing to liver disease less than six months after he underwent a transplant of that same organ – but his legacy, as they saying goes, continues...
by Tim Fenster | Mar 3, 2015 | Album Review
After the needlessly complex, multi-sectioned production on A Better Tomorrow, Wu-Tang fans probably want another album of live-instrument production about as much as the MidEast wants another W. Bush administration. But where the RZA’s work on Tomorrow was too often...
by Tim Fenster | Feb 26, 2015 | Interview
Considering that both members of the funky dance duo, Solidisco, were born and raised – even recorded material – here, it’s pretty strange to hear their show tonight at Waiting Room is their debut home performance. But that is what it is. Though the disco...
by Tim Fenster | Feb 24, 2015 | Album Review
Believe it or not, Kid Rock turned 44 back in January, and he’s not sounding so young anymore. On First Kiss, his tenth studio album, the American Badass stays firmly planted in his front-porch rocker, offering up what might be the chillest, most country-infused music...
by Tim Fenster | Feb 12, 2015 | Preview
Buffalo’s new alt-weekly is holding its second installment of The Public Presents tonight at Nietzsche’s – and they’re serving up a night of simple, down-home American rock with fixings of blues, bluegrass, country, folk, Americana, and...
by Tim Fenster | Feb 3, 2015 | Album Review
Shadows in the Night is certainly one of Bob Dylan’s most confounding projects. From one of the greatest and most innovative architects of modern music – the man who redefined the scope and sound of what an artist could do, and stands still as the voice of the...
by Tim Fenster | Jan 30, 2015 | Opinion
For most of us born in the late ’80s or early ’90s, the name Limp Bizkit brings to mind two things: the group’s almost laughably awful and contrived bro-metal, and the groups fans, which could be politely described as “roided-out,...
