Musings on the past and present state of music, film, and pop culture. Get off my lawn.
Albums Revisited: Pearl Jam’s ‘Ten’ turns 30: our own Diamond Dave Dierksen looks back at the grunge underdog’s iconic debut thirty years on. By David Dierksen On August 27, 1991, Pearl Jam released their début record Ten. And no one really gave a shit. A little under a month later, Nirvana released Nevermind. And still, […]
Albums Revisited: Alice In Chains ‘Jar Of Flies’ Turns 20: A look back at one of the biggest selling E.P’s of all time. I feel quite old today, because tomorrow Alice In Chain’s ‘Jar of Flies’ celebrates its 20th anniversary. Wasn’t I just in college, moping around to the sullen yet gorgeous acoustic driven tunes […]
April 10th is Nirvana Day! Wha?? Nirvana has been defunct since 1994, but 2014 is going to be a busy year for them. Or at least April will be. On April 10th, the Seattle grunge legends will be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. And on that same date, Hoquiam, Washington will […]
Album Review: ‘King Animal’ has its moments, but its too domesticated to be as compelling as the band’s 90’s output. [rating=3] When the newly reunited Soundgarden announced they were recording their new album King Animal, it sparked much anticipation. It’s been 16 years since singer Chris Cornell, Guitarist Kim Thayil, bassist Ben Shepherd and […]
Album Review: The Barrens (Independent Music Promotions) [rating=5] *An interesting fusion of dream-pop, alt-rock and psychedelia, this album casts a lingering spell. The Barrens are a band from NYC that are doing an interesting blend of alternative rock sub-genres on their self titled album (which you can preview and download here from Bandcamp; you […]
Top 40 Darkest Rock Albums Part 4 *Before reading make sure you’ve checked out part 1, part 2 ,and part 3 to see what you may have missed. Okay here we are for the final installment of the Darkest Rock Albums. We have just 10 more to go! If you want any of these in your […]
Garbage Not Your Kind Of People Review My Rating [rating=3] Garbage are a band that challenges the notion of style vs substance. They were often derided for being an overproduced sleek amalgamation of more organic alternative music components (dream pop and trip-hop the core ingredients). But for myself and many, it’s Garbage’s lack of authenticity […]
The Top 15 Lyricists in Alternative Rock It’s easy to pinpoint your favorite vocalists. Lung power, pitch and emotion make identification easy. And not every song needs great lyrics. There are plenty of great songs where wordplay is negligible at best. But when you can find a song whose words hit you deeply, you’re […]
Listen to New Soundgarden song Live To Rise: Antiquiet has the new Soundgarden song “Live To Rise” (which will be included on “The Avengers” soundtrack) available to listen to here. While even the best Soundgarden albums had a few clunkers (“Kickstand” anyone?), this one seems fairly devoid of energy or inspiration. I’m optimistic […]
This past Christmas I got 2 gifts that were at the top of my Amazon wish list: The landmark albums by The Smashing Pumpkins, Gish and Siamese Dream, in their remastered deluxe edition formats. Upon opening the box sets, looking at all the postcard style images from the original album art, the lengthy liner notes, […]
