The Casket Lottery

Review: The Casket Lottery’s Real Fear

The Casket Lottery: Real FearThe Casket Lottery: Real Fear (No Sleep, 11/6/12)

“In the Branches”

The Casket Lottery: “In the Branches”

After a five-year run as a full-time band from 1998 to 2003, Kansas City indie-rock trio The Casket Lottery was able to look back on three standout full-lengths and a handful of EPs. Come 2006, the perpetually underrated band had adopted the same attitude as fellow Kansas City notable Coalesce — which shares The Casket Lottery’s Nathan Ellis and Nathan Richardson — by lying low and working on other projects, but never officially breaking up. Flash forward to 2012 and The Casket Lottery has magically reappeared with two more members — Brent Windler on second guitar and Nick Siegel on keys — and a new full-length album, Real Fear.

Neurosis

Review: Neurosis’s Honor Found in Decay

Neurosis: Honor Found in DecayNeurosis: Honor Found in Decay (Neurot, 10/30/12)

“At the Well”

Neurosis: “At the Well”

Twenty-five years after the influential sludge- and post-metal band issued its first LP, Neurosis remains as stark and dichotomous as ever with its 10th studio full-length. Again led by guitarists/vocalists Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till, Honor Found in Decay pushes and pulls between anguish and ascension — between darkness and light — sometimes within the same passage.

Bush Tetras

MP3 Premiere: Bush Tetras’ “Heart Attack”

Bush Tetras: Happy (ROIR, 11/13/12)

“Heart Attack”

Bush Tetras: “Heart Attack”

Nearly 15 years after it was recorded, Bush Tetras’ 1998 album Happy is finally getting a release. The band, an under-famous staple of the New York post-punk scene, formed in 1979, breaking up and reuniting several times, most recently getting together in 2007. The record, produced by Don Fleming (Sonic Youth, The Screaming Trees), fell into release-and-copyright hell when original distributor Mercury was sold.

The Man with the Iron Fists soundtrack

Review: The Man with the Iron Fists soundtrack

V/A: The Man with the Iron Fists soundtrack (Soul Temple, 10/23/12)

Assembled by rapper/director RZA, the soundtrack for The Man with the Iron Fists aurally delivers on the eyeball-punching promises of his over-the top grindhouse martial-arts movie.

From blues-driven opener “The Baddest Man Alive,” which sees RZA reunite with collaborators The Black Keys, this collection of largely new tracks works as a cohesive album while being eclectic enough to function as accompaniment for a film.

Cramp, Slash & Burn: Punk and glam through the lens of rock photographer John Scarpati

Cramp, Slash and Burn: When Punk and Glam Were TwinsJohn Scarpati: Cramp, Slash & Burn: When Punk and Glam Were Twins (6/22/12)

As a photographer, John Scarpati is well known for his work on album covers, each a dynamic and living piece of art. During the 1980s in Los Angeles, he was the music photographer, an anthropologist of the Sunset Strip, his lens documenting the fashion, sounds, and faces in the era of outrageous musical fashion. Now Scarpati has collected those images in a book, Cramp, Slash & Burn: When Punk and Glam Were Twins.

Jherek Bischoff

Video Premiere: Jherek Bischoff’s “Blossom” f. Wordless Music Orchestra

Jherek Bischoff: Composed (Brassland, 6/5/12)

Jherek Bischoff’s solo album Composed (which we called “immaculately arranged orchestral pop”) was recorded by layering and cutting together single musicians recorded in their living rooms, over his own previously recorded parts. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, however, Bischoff was able to organize a concert at New York’s Merkin Hall with a full backing orchestra.