Lars Gotrich

Locrian always wants to show us something new — or at least rearrange the context of what heavy means, or even what sound means. The trio, together for a decade and now based in Chicago and Baltimore, is at the height of its holistic metallic powers on Infinite Dissolution. ...

It's been four years since James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg released Avos. The understated acoustic guitar duo record was exceptionally conceived and played, especially given that it was the first time the two met. The English-born, longtime Chicago-based Elkington can be found on records by Steve Gunn and ...

Cornwall looks like a pointy horn at the bottom of England, with a seaside that juts with geomorphic violence and beauty. Before moving to London, the folk band Red River Dialect called the region home for years. Those Cornish cliffs and raging sea waters are persistent metaphors for loss, ...

The Lamborghini Countach was one of the most outrageous supercars ever made. It's an ergonomic nightmare, a pain in the ass to get into, has zero tolerance for pedestrian (hell, vehicular) safety and yet ... it's still so awesome. Those defiantly sharp angles, that ludicrous speed, ...

Myrkur's Amalie Bruun makes black metal that is at once savage and sylvan, capable of harrowing violence one moment and beauty the next. Last year's self-titled EP was full of unharnessed promise, but with members of Mayhem and producer Kristoffer "Garm" Rygg (whose mid-'90s work with Ulver no doubt ...

There is an unrequited yearning to Red River Dialect's music that's steadfastly pinned to hearts as they run every which way. That feeling is even written into the English band's album title, Tender Gold and Gentle Blue, descriptive colors that are warm and inviting but also vulnerable and given to ...

Chapel Hill's MAKE is all about the journey, man. The band thrives on heavy, atmospheric jams, inspired by the likes of Isis, Popul Vuh and Neil Young's Crazy Horse, all of which made MAKE's Scott Endres a perfect match as Horseback's guitarist on 2010's doom-and-gloom choogler Invisible Mountain. ...

For the sake of argument and reduction, let's say there are three ways to approach the architecture of extreme metal as it mutates and cross-pollinates genres: those who build blocks, those who construct M.C. Escher-like puzzles, and those who throw spaghetti against the wall. All are valid in their deconstructions, ...

Kashikura Takashi is a hell of a drummer. Fifteen years into the existence of toe, he's often been the focus of the instrumental Japanese post-rock band, and for good reason. Takashi is aerobic and musical all at once, capable of Questlove-level precision and soul one moment, and a cyclone of ...

With a couple decades of avant-rock and electronic composition under his fingers, Chuck Johnson is at his most conversational in Blood Moon Boulder. His third album of solo acoustic guitar music can be steady and beautiful, then answer with a soul-stirring quake. The North Carolina-reared, Oakland-based musician tells NPR, "The ...

In the middle of a bunch of stage-dive-provoking hardcore acts at Damaged City Festival in May, one punk band set up in a straight line at the edge of the stage. It wasn't meant to keep the leaping kids at bay, so much as an equalizer that seemed to say, ...

A simple guide to karaoke: Know your room, know your song, don't perform "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" unless you're ready to commit and, most importantly, sing it like you mean it. Or you could just incite a hedonistic karaoke mosh pit.

In what's ultimately a short film ...

Let's talk about Frances Quinlan's voice for a moment. In "Horseshoe Crab," she whispers with a rasp that feels small, yet embodies the fears we try not to name; then, she throws her head back to ask, "Who is gonna talk trash long after I'm gone?" That gut-punching howl shatters ...

The Velvet Teen has always had a flair for the sonically dramatic. In its initial early-2000s run, the NorCal band was the kind of weepy and twinkly rock outfit that might have soundtracked the falling-in-love montage in a teen rom-com, but would also explode into a squall of feedback ...

One of 2014's quiet surprises was Not So Deep As A Well, in which Montreal's Myriam Gendron set Dorothy Parker's poetry to little more than an acoustic guitar and a wry, wistful voice. Just when you think Parker's words have worn away Gendron, the singer twists or repeats a phrase ...

False makes bracing black metal that, just when it seems like the band won't release its claws from your throat, suddenly drops you into the void. That's the sensation felt halfway through "Entropy," a 15-minute torrent of terror that knows its Scandinavian forbears — complete with dramatic, Emperor-inspired keyboards ...

The amps on All Songs Considered this week never dip lower than 11. Bob is joined in the studio by a sleep-deprived Katie Presley, who just moved across the country in a packed truck and has the road trip anthem to prove it, along with NPR Music's Lars Gotrich, who ...

When he's not on the road, William Tyler calls Nashville home. Outside the main drag, it's a beautiful, no-frills Southern town where the day-to-day often happens in strip malls and small neighborhoods. To coincide with a reissue of his 2008 album Deseret Canyon — originally released under the name ...

In just under three minutes, "Eclipses" will leave you breathless. It's as if the nine years since The Velvet Teen's last album, Cum Laude!, were packed into a single power-pop song that forgoes the formality of a chorus. Barely able to contain his heartbreak, Judah Nagler's verses bleed into one ...

Like a space opera built for two, The Receiver's "Transit" captures a universe of dreamy prog in keyboards and drums. On their third album, All Burn, brothers Casey and Jesse Cooper set complex, bright melodies and heartbeat-pulsing rhythms adrift. "Transit" sounds like a Pink Floyd ballad sung with a ...