Metro Pulse

Wade Hill has one hell of a story. The collage of photos on the cover of Knoxville banjo player/singer/songwriter Wade Hill’s new Anthology shows him on stage, at various points during his nearly 40-year career, with bluegrass luminaries Ralph Stanley, Keith Whitley, and Bill Monroe, and Hill’s also played with Webb Pierce, Jimmy Martin, Vassar Clements, and Ernest Tubb. Full story »

Finally hitting its stride after nearly a decade, Straight Line Stitch nails sweeping-but-crushing melodic metal on its big-label debut. Full story »

With Waiting in Vain, Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice alum James Jackson Toth has adopted an approach that is somewhat more polished than his previous efforts, thankfully without jettisoning his subterranean outlook. Full story »

Repetition doesn’t have to mean repeating yourself. At least, that could be one of the credos behind Stereolab’s stellar output over the past 15 years. Matched head-to-head, every album in their catalog reveals its intricacies and uniqueness. Taken as a whole, however, the entire Stereolab oeuvre fits quite snuggly in the context of any given critic’s attempt at a clever metaphor: say, a swinging ’60s lounge party at Francois Truffaut’s house, as re-imagined by Philip Glass and Kraftwerk. Full story »

Together, on and off, for 32 years, Wire has remained vital through constant redefinition. As members of Britain’s legendary Class of ’77, the group has never been burdened by its association with punk, instead operating as an aggressive and sometimes paranoid art-rock band. Full story »

What we have here is a party record—howling, sweaty R&B screamers, filtered through the lens of punk and delivered by a wise-ass whose primary intent is to entertain and get funky. Full story »

The debut EP from local guitarist Kevin Hyfantis and his Bishop’s Band is a brief but thorough introduction to Hyfantis’ smooth, R&B-influenced pop-rock. Full story »

File Sharing: It’s been nearly 10 years since Randy Newman released an album of new songs, and he comes out swinging with Harps and Angels. It’s a wildly ambitious record—Newman offers both sideways commentary on the state of America in the 21st century and a tutorial on American music from the first half of the 20th century. Full story »

Todd Steed and the Suns of Phere opt for a quiet, reflective tone on much of their new CD. Full story »

Beck achieves an austere classicism on Modern Guilt, a collection of what are essentially old-fashioned straight-up ’70s California rock songs dressed up for the late ’00s. Full story »

Take a recording of Fozzy Bear catching a paw in the blades of a lawn mower, play it at half-speed, and voila!; you have Phil Bozeman, voice of Whitechapel. Full story »

How long is this going to go on? Kids get their parents’ Cure records, start a band and record an EP, blog hype and a major-label deal follow. Black Kids’ debut, Partie Traumatic, is an energetic enough pop-rock record, but it does little to justify the buzz that surrounded the band during the second half of 2007. Full story »

John Bean may have single-handedly invented the recorded prank phone call. He certainly practiced the form with more style and flair than the Jerky Boys or any of the sumbitches who have ripped off his name to unconscionable commercial reward. Full story »

A scant year since its initial release, Chromeo’s Fancy Footwork receives the deluxe reissue treatment with a two-CD set that couples the original album with a second disc featuring a couple of unreleased tracks and several remixes—a double dose for those who missed out the first time. Full story »

Whatever the duo’s cool-kid credentials—headquarters in Brooklyn, touring with Bjork and Mouse on Mars—the two guys in Ratatat come off squarely as a couple of stoner geeks who dig King Crimson and laser-light shows. Full story »