Music

It was a quarter to midnight as The Heartstring Stranglers’ revamped lineup started rolling through its set at a recent Dallas house party—though, technically, the chamber-folk band wasn’t playing inside the house at all. Instead, the stage for the Denton band’s acoustic performance was a narrow, dingy alleyway next to…

TV on the Radio guitarist Kyp Malone is trying to explain the ins and outs of negotiating success as he walks down the street in his hometown of Brooklyn. “It’s what all my friends have been trying for, as long as I can remember,” he says of the level of…

It seems that, in early September, the folks who run KDGE-102.1 FM The Edge finally got around to understanding what everyone else already knew: The station’s annual rock concert, which, in theory, is supposed to comprise of some of the station’s heaviest hitters and rock ‘n’ roll’s biggest draws, kinda…

The last time we heard from Jason Molina’s Magnolia Electric Co. was in 2007, when the band issued the Sojourner boxed set. Since then, the ever-prolific Molina’s been strangely quiet, though two new releases now sit on the horizon for those obsessed with his lonesome howl and schizophrenic songcraft—an equal…

With experience in some eight other beloved local bands—ranging from the Polyphonic Spree to Boys Named Sue—Taylor Young and John Pedigo of The O’s have their own large shoes to fill. Luckily, their self-titled EP, in its humble packaging of pastel copy paper and shrink-wrap, doesn’t disappoint. Like Young and…

Blackbird Harmony is the project of Evan Birdsong, a local country-noir singer-songwriter joined on Hardwood Exits by members of Eleven Hundred Springs and Bosque Brown’s Mara Lee Miller. From the start, the title track firmly establishes the album’s template, with mournful pedal steel giving way to Birdsong’s detached, weary vocals—equal…

At this point, it’s pretty hard to make music about the tension between sin and redemption without sounding hokey. That whole church thing had already been reinvented a zillion times (see: Cash, Cave, Kanye) before Jenny Lewis took a dusty side trip from Rilo Kiley on 2006’s Rabbit Fur Coat,…

For a moment, imagine that you’re Caleb Followill. You front Kings of Leon, and on your band’s just-released fourth album, things finally seem to be falling into place. That disc, Only by the Night, is (for the most part) critically acclaimed and commercially successful—in the U.K., your album debuted atop…

It’s a little eerie. And impossible to avoid, actually: When you sit down and listen to Sorta’s self-titled fifth—and, yep, it’s been confirmed, last—record, you can’t help but think that a number of these songs were written specifically for and about band member Carter Albrecht, who, at 34 years old,…

With their skinny suits, hook-happy songs and penchant for handclapping, it’s tempting to write Locksley off as a group not to be bothered with. But don’t let the glossy clarity of their album Don’t Make Me Wait fool you; while a little too neat and pretty, the disc seems to…

Let’s hope Saturday is not when Moby reaches for his revolver. (Moby) In case you hadn’t heard by now, Meltdown, Lizard Lounge’s enormous annual block party, has a whale of a headliner this year. Moby, the guy who provided the soundtrack to every commercial, TV show and movie released around…

So, it seems that Thursday night’s Cold War Kids gig at Lola’s in Fort Worth has been sold out for three weeks now. Why? Well, Darryl Smyers’ interview with Cold War Kids bassist Matt Maust, which you can read in tomorrow/Thursday’s print edition, tries to answer that question. The answer…

Between the benefit party “Benevolence” hosted at Zubar, and DJ Fishr Pryce’s regular third-Saturday gig at Fallout Lounge, last weekend was a good one to get out in Dallas and mug for the camera a little. Unless you’ve got one or two better things to do, like spin the records,…

Well, it wasn’t the liveliest show to ever grace the Granada’s hallowed stage, but James McMurtry recorded a live album Saturday night. The newly launched NoDepression.com billed Saturday’s event as a promo for the new site — one alt-country classic playing for another — though the way it turned out,…

The Death Set, doing its live thing. (Justin Kelly) Hey, check this out: Tonight’s show at The Lounge, which features Baltimore’s The Death Set as its headliner, is f-r-e-e to attend. If, that is, you’re over 21. If not, this sucker’ll cost you 10 bones. But for the over 21…