Queens of the Stone Age

Must-see sets at Lollapalooza 2013

Need to plan your itinerary for three days of tunes at Chicago’s Grant Park? We’ve done it for you, and Friday’s alignment is near perfect – complete with a dinner break. Also, graciously, we’ve directed you away from the glow-stick-raving teenagers.

Grizzly Bear

Grizzly Bear plays body music in bizarre video for “Gun-Shy”

Grizzly Bear: ShieldsGrizzly Bear: Shields (Warp, 9/18/12)

Brooklyn-based indie rockers Grizzly Bear produced a killer album last year in Shields, a sweeping combination of the electric and acoustic that cements them as one of the genre’s elite. Now they’ve produced a disturbing but beautiful video for “Gun-Shy,” one of the album’s standouts. Evoking elementary-school science videos as well as body horror, the band’s use of animated GIFs might just win it some sort of newfangled Internet award.

ALARM's 50 Favorite Songs of 2012

ALARM’s 50 (+5) Favorite Songs of 2012

Last month ALARM presented its 50 favorite albums of 2012, an eclectic, rock-heavy selection of discs that were in steady rotation in our downtown-Chicago premises. Now, to give some love to tunes that were left out, we have our 50 (+5) favorite songs of last year — singles, B-sides, EP standouts, soundtrack cuts, and more.

Grizzly Bear

Review: Grizzly Bear’s Shields

Grizzly Bear: ShieldsGrizzly Bear: Shields (Warp, 9/18/12)

“Sleeping Ute”

Grizzly Bear: “Sleeping Ute”

In 2009, Brooklyn-based Grizzly Bear became a mainstay of artsy indie rock with its breakthrough effort, Veckatimest, which added to the band’s already gorgeous, distinct sound. Three years later, the vocally adept and sonically diverse quartet is back with Shields, an album even more assured of the band’s signature style.

Weekly Music News Roundup

The long-rumored Faith No More reunion has been confirmed (!!!).  Vocal heavyweight Mike Patton keeps busy with a feature-film soundtrack, MF Doom drops half his name and a new album, Dengue Fever provides accompaniment to The Lost World, hip-hop duo Themselves returns, and much more.