Contributor
402 items by Jon Dolan
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Treats | ALBUM REVIEW
Sleigh Bells have ridden their love of cheap beats and scorched-earth guitars into an almost Vampire Weekend-level hype storm. This Brooklyn duo keep it hilariously simple: neck-snapping hip-hop beats and blasts of gonzo riffage from producer Derek...
May 24, 2010 1:05 PM ET -
"Not Afraid" | SONG REVIEW
"Let's be honest, that last Relapse CD was eh," Eminem admits on "Not Afraid," his therapeutic new single. Even a sicko like Slim Shady couldn't stomach another humorless disc of Lindsay Lohan decapitation fantasies, so he scrapped...
May 12, 2010 12:05 AM ET -
"Lights" | SONG REVIEW
On 2007's Our Love to Admire, New York's doomy New Wavers abandoned taut goth punk in favor of bigger, more expansive art rock. Chastened, the band is back to its old voodoo on a new single. "Lights"...
May 12, 2010 12:00 AM ET -
A Different Kind of Tension (Reissue) | ALBUM REVIEW
The Buzzcocks were the Seventies U.K. punk band that sang about all the corny teenage fixations the other Seventies U.K. punks rejected: love, lust, orgasm addiction, cars, being 16. But they did it with just as much...
May 11, 2010 7:06 AM ET -
Diamond Eyes | ALBUM REVIEW
The Deftones' sixth album is inspired by tragedy: a car accident in 2008 that left bassist Chi Cheng barely conscious. The results recall the convulsive pummel of 2000's White Pony, which remains the standard for the thinking...
May 10, 2010 11:57 AM ET -
Heaven is Whenever | ALBUM REVIEW
At a time when all the hipster bands are highbrow conceptualists, the Hold Steady are keeping alive the tradition of the schlubby genius. The Brooklyn quartet make something mythic from a simple set of core values: sport...
May 4, 2010 3:50 PM ET -
Cosmogramma | ALBUM REVIEW
He's related to John Coltrane, he's tight with Thom Yorke, so it's fitting that L.A. hip-hop surrealist Steven Ellison is a restless experimenter with an ear for forlorn beauty. The shape-shifting tracks on his third disc incorporate...
May 4, 2010 3:00 PM ET -
Junior | ALBUM REVIEW
King is a guitar virtuoso whose genre of choice — indie-rock — forces her into an odd middle-ground between dexterous displays of technique and thorny evocations of self-doubt with titles like "Everything Has An End Even Sadness."...
April 22, 2010 7:02 PM ET -
Rise Up | ALBUM REVIEW
With its two Tom Morello rap-rock tracks and lefty-punk cover art, the first Cypress Hill record in six years promises radical reinvention. Sure, 70 million bong hits have rendered B-Real and Sen Dog confused political theorists (complaining...
April 22, 2010 4:53 PM ET -
Sisterworld | ALBUM REVIEW
After tearing up the New York post-punk scene in the early 2000s, the Liars reappeared as Berlin electronic experimentalists and L.A. industrial groove things. Their fifth album lays claim to L.A.'s pulpy occult mythos with glowering...
April 8, 2010 3:44 PM ET -
Slash | ALBUM REVIEW
It's the anti-Chinese Democracy. If Axl's masterwork was a solitary quest for perfection, Slash's solo debut is a freewheeling group hug. The former G n' R guitarist doesn't sing, of course, but his snake pit runneth over...
April 5, 2010 4:55 PM ET -
"...And the World Laughs With You" | SONG REVIEW
A couple of years back, L.A. hip-hop surrealist Flying Lotus remixed Radiohead's "Reckoner" into an alluring funereal ooze. On the marquee track from his forthcoming Cosmogramma, he has Thom Yorke's distracted falsetto sounding even more resplendently ghostly....
April 5, 2010 2:00 PM ET -
Elect the Dead Symphony | ALBUM REVIEW
System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian's 2007 solo debut, Elect the Dead, was a harmless brain-dump, but the idea of recording it live with an orchestra is another story. The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra gamely...
March 9, 2010 12:25 AM ET -
The Fame Monster | ALBUM REVIEW
Gaga is including locks of hair from her wigs in the deluxe reissue of 2008's The Fame. It's the Warhol-y thing to do. But she covers her conceptual bets by rolling out sturdy club-thumpers, and this...
November 18, 2009 3:50 PM ET -
No Ceilings | ALBUM REVIEW
Weezy's great new mixtape leaked online nine days after he pleaded guiltyto a gun-possession charge, so there's only accidental allusion to the jailtime staring him in the grill. When he raps, "I'm in the gun club/Do youwanna...
November 9, 2009 12:00 AM ET -
Embryonic | ALBUM REVIEW
"I wish I could go back in time," Wayne Coyne yelps on the Flaming Lips' 12th record. In a sense, he has: These psych-rock mystics haven't sounded so off-the-wall since they were Oklahoma acidheads in the...
October 15, 2009 12:00 PM ET -
Brand New Eyes | ALBUM REVIEW
Emo can be a gross mix of self-absorption and media savvy. Which is what makes the naiveté of these tortured Tennesseans so likable. On 2007's platinum Riot!, they seemed to behaving actual fun playing their sharp, sheer...
September 28, 2009 12:00 AM ET -
Steely Dan Wrap Beacon Theatre Stand With "Gaucho" Gig | ARTICLE
Last night Donald Fagen and Walter Becker got dressed, walked down the street and made a little lucre playing the most cynical music ever. The event was the final night of Steely Dan's long stand at New...
August 13, 2009 2:48 PM ET -
Farm | ALBUM REVIEW
Dinosaur Jr. set the standard for convulsive indie-rock guitar fireworks in the Eighties. Incredibly, the band's original lineup — guitarist J Mascis, bassist Lou Barlow and drummer Murph — hasn't lost a thunderous step. On the second...
June 22, 2009 12:00 AM ET -
Preliminaires | ALBUM REVIEW
With the recent Stooges reunion, 62-year-old Iggy Pop proved that old guys can still be punk-rock bone-crushers. This bizarre foray into French jazz, Dixieland swing and lite Euro-trashy electro (inspired by nihilist-chic novelist Michel Houellebecq) proves they...
June 22, 2009 12:00 AM ET
