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Happy Valentine’s day! Here’s a depressing record. As the newly formed LVLTR announces on God Bless Our Happy Home, “This band/record exists for anyone who feels stuck in a situation they don't want to be in.” Reuniting Pulling Teeth’s Chris Kuhn and Dom Romeo, the project is about failed relationships- failed marriages, failed self-actualization, failed relationships to the world. That is to say, it’s a very personal record. The band bathes the self-reflection in a huge shoegaze type guitar wash. Bassist Lauren Beecher adds a contrast to Kuhn’s low rumble and sometimes the band gets downright poppy. Second track “Born to die” is powered by a juiced up guitar charge that...

Here’s a ripper. LA’s Slaughterhouse has undergone a few lineup changes the last few years but they appear to have solidified with Sick and Tired. The band flips between full on hardcore smashing and goth-lite spookiness. It works really well. What the band is particularly good at is keeping the sharp edge of punk and hardcore and posturing that into a classic pop structure. “Gimme something else1 Gimme something else! Gimme something else!” is repeated on “DNA,” the lead track and it’s almost like an 80s pop hit has been dropped onto a circle pit slammer. It feels clever, throughout out, and honest. Oh also, there’s a cover of “My War.” Many bands have attempted...

There are a lot of Iggy live albums. Some of them are mind-blowing (i.e. the bonus live discs from the Bowie years box set), some are very gray market (anything on the Easy Action label), some are interesting for their uniqueness (TV Eye which is Iggy and Ziggy) and some are kind of a snap shot of him with a random backing band from the 80s (anything on the weirdly named Revenge label). Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 2023 is the best parts of Iggy’s live oeuvre snapped together. First of all, in true Iggy form, Iggy is coming to destroy. “TV Eye” find’s champ coming to rock- howling, jumping around, and really, it may be cliché to say, but Iggy represents the primal, soul shakin...

Chaos as Planned, the second LP from Redshift, couldn’t be more timely. As you may know, Redshift is the latest venture of vaunted punk musician Vic Bondi (Articles of Faith) along with Mike Catts and Adam Gross. The trio kick out revved up surf rock with a hardcore punk backbone. Chaos, the band’s second LP, finds them really locking into their groove all while biting into Trumpism. Surely, the record was written during the election, but before the results came in, so it really is astounding to hear how directly the band attacks the 2025 American mindset. Bondi likes to operate in the literal, so here he directly points out how corporations are rapidly expanding their massive reach. ...

Sure, it was an industry event, but even the most skeptical among us would have to admit that the heart was in the right place for LA’s Fire Aid concert, which was spread across the Kia forum and Intuit Dome. The event kicked off with Green Day and Billie Eilish doing “Last night on earth.” The fact of the matter is, the song might not be that great, but the rendition, especially in light of the recent fires, was particular moving. And to that end, I’ve never been a Green Day fan, nor am I a hater, but they sounded really good and by the time the kicked into “when I come around,” they had the place rocking. I’ll also add that Billie Joe astoundingly hasn’t aged a day sinc...