Danger Mouse is arguably the most adventurous producer to tackle a Beck project since the Dust Brothers helped birth a 1996 baby called Odelay (the Dusters’ return for 2004’s Güero doesn’t count). The resulting sound is satisfyingly dense and intricate; the neo-surfisms of “Gamma Ray,” the delicate psychedelia of “Chemtrails”…

Sigur Rós’s latest is positively festooned with danger signs: first album to be mainly recorded outside its home base of Iceland; first to feature a track sung in English; and the first co-produced by a big-shot dial-twister (Flood, of Depeche Mode fame). Somehow, though, this series of seemingly suspect compromises…

Precious few listeners notice the drumming in modern-rock bands. But Julian Dorio, stick man for the Whigs, is an exception to this rule. His agitated skinsmanship on Mission Control, the band’s new full-length, not only anchors the album but provides just as many of the hooks as do frontman Parker…

A couple of decades back, U.K. metal acts such as Iron Maiden ruled the hard-rock world. Since then, the market for British steel has gone soft—but Bullet for My Valentine lead singer/guitarist Matt Tuck sees signs of stiffening. “It’s something that we think about and are aware of—that we could…

The Snoopster uses his ultra-cool stoner persona to make up for a multitude of sins—and Ego Trippin’ will only enhance his increasingly cuddly image. Thanks to his charming obliviousness, Snoop generally gets away with lyrics and arrangements that range from timeworn to ridiculous. Despite his current reality-show stardom, he’s still…

When music-industry experts advise fledgling musicians how to achieve success, few probably suggest developing a weird blend of rock, pop and exotic folk music. DeVotchKa has done so anyhow, though, and A Mad & Faithful Telling is the highly enjoyable result. Because the group stays true to the rudiments of…

Sorry, ’80s nostalgists, but Duran Duran was never a great band or even a particularly good one. The Duranies gained fame as sleek, sleazy showmen with a strong visual sense and the ability to transform other people’s ideas into garish pop ready-mades. “Girls on Film,” “Hungry Like the Wolf” and…

Dinosaur Jr.’s June 1991 tour was its most famous thanks to what’s now seen as a historical anomaly: The opening act was Nirvana. But in those days, no one looked askance at the billing. Although Nirvana’s early work (for a rising indie called Sub Pop) had inspired Geffen Records to…

American Gangster is considerably better than 2006’s lackluster Kingdom Come, if only because it returns Jay-Z to his criminal comfort zone. However, it still falls short of his finest material. The disc feels more like the sort of Hollywood production that inspired it—a star vehicle assembled by skilled craftsmen—than the…

The most-viewed YouTube clip starring Puscifer, Tool leader Maynard James Keenan’s twisted side project, is “Cuntry Boner,” which features MJK, his drawers distended by a massive faux erection, twanging out lines such as “I’ve fucked Minnie Pearl” over a stomping hoedown beat. “V” Is for Vagina’s title promises more of…

Eagles Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit may all love music, but they don’t make it collectively unless there’s a mammoth payday involved. Maybe that’s why this set, which is being released through a profit-maximizing deal with Wal-Mart, seems more inspired by commerce than art. The…

If Northern State’s Julie Potash was bitter, no one would have blamed her. Although All City, the New York-based hip-hop hybrid’s first release for Columbia Records, made Rolling Stone’s list of 2004’s top 50 albums, the relationship between band and corporate master soon soured, preventing Potash and her fellow rhymers…

It’s lucky for Kid Rock that he’s an egomaniacal dipshit, because otherwise his music would be about as memorable as a Molly Hatchet eight-track sans “Flirting With Disaster.” Still, the former Mr. Pamela Anderson’s good-humored salutes to his own cocksmanship—not to mention his skill at Xeroxing classic boogie—can’t entirely offset…

The music on 2006’s Everything All the Time, Band of Horses’ breakthrough CD, could serve as the soundtrack for the originality versus inspiration debate. There was nothing novel about the disc, with most ditties overtly recalling assorted expressionistic, guitar-driven predecessors. Yet the tunes were so passionately performed that they frequently…

Magic is being hyped as Springsteen’s rocking return to his classic period, and that’s understandable: The album contains lots of familiar musical totems, not to mention lyrics about driving a highway until the road turns black, and a diner on the edge of town (bet it’s dark there). But while…

Retro soul’s got to be damn fine to justify its existence, since the stuff it’s modeled on is readily available for listening pleasure and embarrassing comparisons. Fortunately, the latest from Sharon Jones and Bettye LaVette qualify thanks to vocal authenticity and musical settings that offer inventive takes on the old…

Given the advances in digital studio equipment, cutting an album in analog can be both more difficult and more expensive than using readily available modern gear. Ben Harper, though, wanted the old-school experience, so he and his band laid down Lifeline fast and dirty using a 16-track console. The results…

Consistency is considered a virtue—but for Richard Thompson, it’s been a drawback too. He was first championed during the late ’60s for his contributions to Fairport Convention, among the most interesting English folk-rock groups of the era, and he saw his star rise again in the ’80s thanks to Shoot…

U.K. music scribes have always been addicted to hype, but the genuflection over the British quartet is a bit too breathless, even by their standards. The chart-topping Arctic Monkeys couldn’t live up to the praise heaped on them if they were fronted by Jesus and Mohammed. So it’s hardly shocking…

In all the hoopla over the influence of ’60s and ’70s art rock on some of today’s most interesting bands, one salient fact is frequently overlooked: A lot of that stuff blew. For every Roxy Music and King Crimson, there was a Yes or an Emerson, Lake & Palmer (plus…

Every music lover has a line beyond which material that had been intriguing becomes self-indulgent. On In Glorious Times, the Museum members don’t just cross this line, they flip back and forth over it like Carly Patterson on angel dust, daring listeners to decide from one moment to the next…

As with Contraband, the first Velvet Revolver CD, Libertad is an amalgam of its influences: some good (Guns N’ Roses), others less so (Stone Temple Pilots). Still, the unregenerate retro-ness of the project—and of Slash’s axing in general—will leave those with a taste for cock rock at least temporarily sated…