The Toronto band is now on the mainstream radar, with its taboo lyrics concerning the deeds of Canada’s most notorious pig-farming serial killer and prog-punk epics.

Although it’s seldom name-checked by the New York hipster cognoscenti, the Williamsburg trio has nonetheless established itself as one of the city’s A-list outfits.

The 5-piece band isn’t exactly in danger of knocking the Killers, Metallica, or U2 out of rock ’n’ roll’s elite club, but it's slowly building a reputation as one of the most thrillingly anarchic acts currently operating in North America.

The group's sophomore album, the undeniably original A Certain Feeling, drags gospel music out of the churches and into the American indie-rock underground.

Having been in the rock ’n’ roll game long enough that the novelty of touring has worn off, Howlin Rain frontman Ethan Miller knows where he’d rather be these days. If he’s given the choice of hitting the highways of North America or sweating the little stuff in a recording studio, the latter wins every time.

Although nowhere near as slyly subversive or cartoonishly clever as the 1975 cult classic that inspired it, beneath the smoke, shrapnel, and body parts this movie still has something to say.

Getting to the Pemberton Festival for day one wasn’t easy, but the sheer variety of talent on hand made the trek worth it, says our Music Editor Mike Usinger.

The songs on Elect the Dead make it clear exactly where the ArmenianAmerican hardrock iconoclast stands on everything from porn to Iraq as he takes aim at U.S. warmongers and America's addiction to opiates.

If there’s a downside to being Gregg Gillis, it’s that pop music has become something to be constantly dissected and bookmarked for future reference.

They have no one but themselves to blame, but the members of Abe Vigoda must be getting tired of reading that their guitars sound like steel drums.

Featuring the voices of Andy Samberg, Cheryl Hines, and Patrick Warburton. Rated G. Opens Friday, July 18, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

The band’s lush sophomore release At Mount Zoomer wasn’t made for too-cool-for-Pitchfork hipsters. Its sound was created in a hyper-experimental spirit that’s layered, impossibly lush, and seemingly designed to get real fans reaching for their headphones.

It’s a long way from Mississauga, Ontario, to Los Angeles, California, but as far as illScarlett singer Alex Norman is concerned, the two locales have plenty in common. So when the frontman and his bandmates temporarily relocated to the City of Angels last year to record their debut full-length, All Day With It, it didn’t take long for them to feel right at home.

With a bucket of Behr Frosted Pomegranate paint, you give the music section the Ellen Woodsworth, and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt, two recently released major-label CDs, and two tickets to a Live Nation club show taking place in Vancouver within the next four weeks. Here’s this week’s winning whinge.

Titty bars are scarce to be seen in Rock N Roll Jesus, the most recent release by the American Bad Ass, which is proof that he really is all about the music.

Sean Scolnick’s metamorphosis into Langhorne Slim came about completely naturally, but that doesn’t mean it’s been painless. Right from the point that underground Americana disciples discovered the singer-songwriter, through the 2005 roots raver When the Sun’s Gone Down, there have been questions. The biggest one is how someone raised in the well-to-do, whiter-than-Colombian-snow borough of Langhorne, Pennsylvania ended up sounding like a southern-gothic shit-kicker.

This summer's concert lineup could not be more packed. George Michael, Mark Knopfler, Stevie Wonder, Boy George, Radiohead, Oasis, and, God help us, the Stone Temple Pilots will be on a stage near you soon.

Bonnaroo in Tennessee and Chicago's Lollapalooza attract pop music's heavy hitters and huge numbers of fans each year, and the same buzz is around a new three-day showcase in B.C. next month.

You hire Amy Winehouse to play the music section’s next private party, and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt, two recently released major-label CDs, and two tickets to a Live Nation club show taking place in Vancouver within the next four weeks. Here’s this week’s winning whine.

Be Your Own Pet doesn’t get mentioned in the same breath as the Warped Tour hordes, but few bands sound more punk rock.

Because it’s one of those memories that couldn’t be grimmer, singer-guitarist Rhett Miller has no trouble recalling the first time the Old 97’s played Vancouver. The year was 1998, a time when live music in this city was deader than Kurt Cobain.

If he didn’t already have a reputation as the most clever egghead in rock ’n’ roll, it would be easy to assume Rivers Cuomo is a Grade A stooge.

The brilliance of the Black Angels’ Directions to See a Ghost is that it sounds like a genuine artifact from the psychedelic ’60s, as opposed to the work of indie kids paying homage to a drugged-out time they never knew. Reached on his cellphone in his adopted hometown of Austin, Texas, singer Alex Maas says that’s hardly an accident. The frontman knew exactly what he was after on the Angels’ sophomore release, and he was more than willing to put in the time to realize his vision.

The eponymously titled The Jealous Girlfriends is a sophomore release, but where the Brooklyn-based quartet’s drummer, Mike Fadem, is concerned, the album should be considered a debut. When the timekeeper hooked up with singer-guitarist Holly Miranda and keyboardist Alex Lipsen, they’d already released their first record as the Jealous Girlfriends, 2005’s Comfortably Uncomfortable.

It’s not all sunshine and lollipops for Cardiff’s indie sensations, who draw their inspiration more from U.S. college rock than Pete Doherty.

The first thing you notice about Mindless Self Indulgence frontman Jimmy Urine is that he is unfailingly polite. This is surprising, considering MSI’s live shows are nothing less than combative spectacles, while the band’s hyper-demented genre-mashing songs are often carefully calculated to offend.

Yannis Philippakis has a fascination with the 2001 book Our Band Could Be Your Life, author Michael Azerrad’s ode to an ’80s underground that bulldozed the way for today’s indie-rock explosion. It’s somehow poetic, then, that the Oxford, England–based musician is experiencing life as it was once lived by trailblazers like Black Flag, Sonic Youth, and the Replacements.

The 20-year-old British soul sister known simply as Adele wrote her debut album, 19, when her main ambition was to land an occasional club gig. At the time, she was going through a breakup that would colour many of the songs, and even though a painful chapter in her life has now become an open book for her fans, the singer figures there’s not much she would have done differently.

In a couple of years with Beirut, DIY’s current golden child has built a reputation as one of the most visionary upstarts in the indie nation.

Tokyo Police Club singer-bassist David Monks has no problem breaking down the game plan for the recording of his band’s debut album, Elephant Shell. Although it took the members of the Newmarket, Ontario, quartet a good three years to produce the long-player, they at least knew what they weren’t after.

At a Thursday night Dick’s on Dicks show Kate Nash put out far more energy than she got back from a capacity crowd.

You force the music section to work at a doggy daycare, and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt, two recently released major-label CDs, and two tickets to a Live Nation club show taking place in Vancouver within the next four weeks. Here’s this week’s winning whinge.

David Wong's house is painted red, but the designer has turned it ecogreen, inside and out.

The Kills still sound dirty, distorted, and too cool for art school, but more than ever you can shake your ass to them on their third album, Midnight Boom.

The English electro-rockers are smashing across America and destroying dance floors with a hyper debut disc. But whatever you do, don't label them.

Conventionally speaking, artists resort to recording albums of other people’s songs when they’ve run out of fresh ideas. But that’s not the case for Andy Cabic of San Francisco–based folk-noir alchemists Vetiver, whose just-released third disc, Thing of the Past, is nothing but covers.

Josh Homme's refusal to pander to the masses meant QOTSA's beer-chugging fans had to wait for the heavy artillery to arrive on-stage at the PNE Forum.

Once all the tales of titty twisting, tongue probing, and creeps with roving hands are over, the Trucks conclude their eponymous debut album with a simple—and seemingly sincere—request. Evidently exasperated enough to turn to a famous fat man for help, singer-guitarist Kristin Allen-Zito finishes the record with “Dear Santa, please don’t bring me another boyfriend for Christmas/The last one sucked.”

Why did San Andreas (Grand Theft Auto) rock?

Last Sunday (April 20), the Raconteurs made Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom the launching pad for their current North American tour. The show wasn’t exactly seamless—blown lines here and there and confused looks between bandmates made it obvious that the quartet hasn’t completely mastered every song off its just-released sophomore album, Consolers of the Lonely. Still, that somehow didn’t matter.

Last Sunday (April 20), the Raconteurs made Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom the launching pad for their current North American tour. The show wasn’t exactly seamless—blown lines here and there and confused looks between bandmates made it obvious that the quartet hasn’t completely mastered every song off its just-released sophomore album, Consolers of the Lonely. Still, that somehow didn’t matter.

Under the guidance of former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, The Gift, the Glaswegian band's latest, is more '70s glam and Phil Spector than Tartan-spiked Americana.

Looking back, guitarist Phil Sgrosso sees last year’s An Ocean Between Us as the record where As I Lay Dying made major changes in the way it does business. Shaking things up is something the San Diego–based metalcore unit has gotten used to over its eight-year run. During that time, members have come and gone; Sgrosso enlisted in the middle of the decade, joining fellow new recruits Nick Hipa (guitar) and since-departed bassist Clint Norris.

Right from the moment he picks up his cellphone in a crowded Reykjavík Airport, the mono-named man known as Mugison is an interviewer’s dream. Even though he has every reason to be distracted—along with his dad and his three-year-old son, he’s picking up a package—he gives each question his undivided attention. He’s easily excited, and not just when he talks about landing the opening slot on Queens of the Stone Age’s upcoming North American tour.

Be Your Own Pet

Without even pausing to think about it, Brendan Benson describes the Raconteurs as one of the most incredible things that’s ever happened to him.

Judged by their deliriously lecherous debut, Reality Check, the Teenagers might be the best reason for North America to lock up its daughters since Mötley Crüe during The Dirt years.

Considering that Apocalyptica is no one’s idea of a typical rock band, it makes sense that cellist Paavo Lötjönen doesn’t give the standard answer when asked about playing clubs in North America.

From turbo-soul crooning, metal-aria howling, and grindcore gurgling, Protest the Hero went to impressive lengths on Fortress to avoid being written off as a screamo band.