The video for “Into the Depths” by the Soft Moon is filmed in grainy black-and-white, with claustrophobia-inducing camera work. It shows a woman who keeps looking over her shoulder in fear as she runs through …

My phone conversation with Mountain Goats mastermind John Darnielle gets off to a bad start when I ask him about his love of black metal. He corrects me: he is a fan of death metal, …

If you had heard nothing about the Kopecky Family Band except their name, you would be forgiven for not having high hopes about this Nashville six-piece. It doesn’t help much to learn that none of …

Delicate Steve’s song “Redeemer,” from the new Positive Force, is an original, but it sounds like an oddball cover version of the instrumental theme song from some forgotten 1980s TV drama (I’m thinking Hill Street …

A couple of weeks before the election, I looked up a Future of the Left video online, but before I could see it I had to sit through a campaign ad for Rep. Michele Bachmann. …

Punk is getting interesting again. This year, the Russian provocateurs in Pussy Riot proved that punk is still a polarizing political and cultural force. But, musically, punk is thrilling in a way it hasn’t been …

The octopus is an intelligent creature with some amazing abilities. It can squeeze its boneless body through tight spaces. It can crawl along the bottom of the ocean floor or suddenly switch on its built-in …

It has to be weird to be John Lydon. I once saw Public Image Ltd. play in San Francisco and after a few songs, Lydon stormed offstage because people in the front row were spitting …

This is the age of the rock-star DJ. Where once anonymous technicians lurked behind turntables and electronics, now there are household names (more or less) with trademarked haircuts and masks. These guys (and they are …