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Hawthorne Heights: A 10-Year Retrospectivenew

Hawthorne Heights, emo.

Worcester Magazine | Cade Overton | 09-04-2014 | Reviews

Marianne Dissard: The Cat. Not Menew

French-born Marianne Dissard left her longtime home of Tucson last year, but not before recording her third proper album, one that pairs ambitious musical leaps with greater emotional vulnerability. Variety has characterized Dissard's musical path, from 2008's L'Entredeux (written with and produced by Calexico's Joey Burns), which found Dissard channeling Americana through her French chanson tradition, to the bright and theatrical L'Abandon (2011) to two loose, off-the cuff recordings, made in Berlin and Paris with her small touring ensembles...

Tucson Weekly | Eric Swedlund | 02-13-2014 | Reviews

J.D. Wilkes & the Dirt Daubers: Wild Moonnew

What began as an old-timey unplugged side project for psychobilly trailblazer J.D. Wilkes and his pinup-gorgeous wife, Jessica, has evolved on their third album into a swaggeringly electric band that specializes in swamp blues and twangy garage-abilly. Fans of Wilkes' Legendary Shack Shakers will appreciate the after-midnight roadhouse energy of the Dirt Daubers, but this group also crafts concise songs with oodles of melodic hooks that all might have been hit singles in an alternate jukebox universe...

Tucson Weekly | Gene Armstrong | 01-16-2014 | Reviews

Tags: J.D. Wilkes & the Dirt Dauber

Beyoncénew

Beyoncé

East Bay Express | Ellen Cushing | 12-17-2013 | Reviews

Howe Gelb: The Coincidentalistnew

On his latest album of avant-twang and alternative folk-rock, the Giant Sand leader and Tucson music-scene godfather sings in an almost spoken drawl, by turns gruff and sweet, that may be familiar to longtime fans. But here it's mixed up close, like an intimate, whispered confidence, as if Gelb were spinning old stories in the privacy of your living room...

Tucson Weekly | Gene Armstrong | 11-07-2013 | Reviews

Arctic Monkeys: AMnew

Every couple of months, the British press finds a new band that will "save rock." In the summer, or maybe early autumn, of 2005, Arctic Monkeys saved rock, but on a scale unprecedented at that time, even by Oasis...

Tucson Weekly | Joshua Levine | 09-12-2013 | Reviews

Tags: Arctic Monkeys

Janelle Monáe: The Electric Ladynew

Janelle Monáe swung for the fences on 2010's hyper-ambitious The ArchAndroid, hustling between musical styles and sidestepping pop star shenanigans in order to announce the arrival of a serious artiste. The Electric Lady doesn't represent a reimagining of Monáe's project...

Tucson Weekly | Sean Bottai | 09-12-2013 | Reviews

Tags: Janelle Monae

Fuck Buttons: Slow Focusnew

One of the oddest and most impressive things about Slow Focus is how it manages to burble, groan, stammer and seethe and yet it never crosses the line from melody into discord. From the cacophonous percussion that ushers in the opening track, "Brainfreeze," Slow Focus often seems as if, at any moment, it might break apart into science-fiction static...

Tucson Weekly | Sean Bottai | 08-09-2013 | Reviews

David Lynch: The Big Dreamnew

"No, no, no, I don't drink that foreign beer," legendary filmmaker/weirdo David Lynch chortles at the end of the electro-blues vamp "Sun Can't Be Seen No More." This being Lynch, the whole song is sung through a vocal modulator that transmogrifies his pipes into something akin to an asthmatic Donald Duck...

Tucson Weekly | Michael Petitti | 08-09-2013 | Reviews

Tags: David Lynch