Music

Don’t let the recent national attention paid to melodic, songwriting-focused acts such as Doug Burr and Midlake fool you: Denton bands can be aggressive and dark. Really. Doubt that for a minute and Last Men will be on your ass like Henry Rollins in a slightly bad mood. Well, not…

Bruce Springsteen shouldn’t need an introduction. He’s won 18 Grammy Awards and an Oscar, sold more than 65 million albums and, well, his name is practically synonymous with “working-class,” “Everyman” and “New Jersey” in conversation. Everyone knows The Boss. In his 1980s heyday, it seemed like you couldn’t go half…

With two permanent string members—a violinist and a cellist—firmly entrenched in its six-piece line-up, the members of Ra Ra Riot were bound to find themselves compared with a certain Canadian act you might have heard a little too much about in the past few years. Does the name Arcade Fire…

Over time, pretension gets tiresome—and to devastating effects. So, from time to time, we just plain need some good-natured, light-hearted stupid fun. How else could you explain music-based pop culture phenomena of the recent past such as The Vengaboys and that guy (?) named Sanjaya? It must be with this…

We expect a lot from our indie-ethos, crossover pop stars nowadays, even from a duo as inspired as Gnarls Barkley, aka DJ Danger Mouse and rapper Cee-Lo. We expect guilt-free-yet-radio-worthy earworms like “Crazy,” not to mention genuine pathos, ground-breaking production and minimal amounts of filler—all of which Gnarls Barkley managed…

It might be first instinct to say that Denton’s Record Hop made a deal with the devil, or with God, or with another spirit entirely to produce its eponymous second full-length release. Alas, it was none of the above. Rather, the deal was struck with unassuming Shellac frontman and Chicago-based…

While still worshipping at the altar of Frank Black (with a menacing snarl a la famed ’60s psycho Sky Saxon), Kyle Barnhill, the frontman for Fort Worth’s The Cut*Off, has conjured up his best set of songs for the band’s excellent third effort, Packaged Up for Beginners. By melding the…

North Carolina’s Birds of Avalon is on a roll. Bazaar Bazaar, the band’s 2007 full-length debut, has garnered critical kudos while helping the band pick up fans across the country. Formed by Cheetie Kumar and Paul Siler after both guitarists left The Cherry Valence, Birds of Avalon fuses elements of…

Do You Like Rock Music? charts the latest step in the evolution that took British Sea Power from its post-punk-flavored debut, The Decline of British Sea Power, to its slicker sophomore disc, Open Season. For record No. 3, BSP enlisted three producers, including former Arcade Fire drummer Howard Bilerman—notable because…

A finalist on Nashville Star and winner of the Cover Girl Fresh Face of Country Music Award, Miranda Lambert has a résumé that reads like the instructions on a bag of ramen noodles. It’s clear that she was launched from the same bottomless box of blank ammo that spawned the…

Ra Ra Riot shows are always a good time. (Sarah Cass) I’m not gonna get too deep into Ra Ra Riot in this little post, well, because I already did so here. Just know that I’m a big fan. And that I’ll be at their Lola’s gig with The Little…

…and Nevada Hill’s cover art is dope, too. You’ll notice a very distinct Denton flavor in the front of the music section of this week’s Observer. That was intentional. But giving Denton-based rock quartet Record Hop’s new self-titled disc a stellar review during that same week? That was purely a…