At the end of February, the Chapel Hill garage rock trio Flesh Wounds quietly released three new songs online. A brisk, hooky, in-the-red run, the songs nod to surf-rock icons The Trashmen through a barrage of Guitar Wolf scuzz. Strong in structure and sound, they realize the promise of 2012’s raw cassette release Abrasions, Abcesses, […]
Bryan C. Reed
Bio: Bryan Reed lives in Raleigh, where he nerds out about punk rock and comic books. He's written about music for INDY Week since 2008.Twitter: http://twitter.com/BryanCReed
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Megafaun’s Joe Westerlund issues his freewheeling debut as Grandma Sparrow May 20
Grandma Sparrow, the long-gestating solo project of Megafaun drummer Joe Westerlund, will finally debut May 20, when Matthew E. White’s Spacebomb Records releases Grandma Sparrow & His Piddletractor Orchestra. Westerlund is a steady drummer not only for Megafaun but also for Califone and Mount Moriah, but he’s long had other musical ventures. He studied composition […]
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Zeke Graves talks about the art of making and playing banjos
When he took the stage at Chapel Hill’s Nightlight a few weeks ago, Zeke Graves didn’t draw much from the moody electronica he crafts as Datahata or from the spectral electric guitar improvisations heard on last year’s Chthonic Journey. Instead, the multifaceted instrumentalist performed a set of traditional folk music on a collection of banjos—some […]
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Hopscotch announces first band of 2014 festival, hesher heroes High on Fire
Last year at Raleigh’s Hopscotch Music Festival, stoner metal architects architects Sleep capped the weekend with a superlative set. Hopscotch has invited that band’s guitarist, Matt Pike, to return to Raleigh in 2014, this time leading High on Fire. Following in its tradition of early metal announcements (see Swans, Sunn O))) and Sleep), High on […]
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Wilmington rockers ASG return from a long pause with their best album yet
ASG With Lazer/Wulf and A Bottle Volcanic Thursday, Feb. 20, 9 p.m. $10-$13 Southland Ballroom The Wilmington band ASG almost didn’t last long enough to make its best record. In 2008, on the verge of releasing fourth album Win Us Over, the group’s longtime label, Volcom Entertainment, dropped ASG. Ultimately, the now-defunct music division of […]
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Young And In The Way emerges from the studio, brings new songs and new approach to Raleigh on Sunday
In 2011, the Charlotte-based metal band Young And In The Way seemed poised for a national breakthrough. That year, the band released two LPs, I Am Not What I Am and V. Eternal Depression, on the heels of three other EPs. In the months following, heavy music blogs raved about the band’s deft mix of […]
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Brain F≠’s Empty Set
W ith the release of their delayed sophomore LP Empty Set, Charlotte punks Brain F≠ sound ready for a breakout year. It’s too bad they may no longer exist. Soon after releasing their underground-hit debut Sleep Rough in 2011, the members of Brain F≠ scattered: Singer and guitarist Nick Goode focused instead on the similarly […]
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Torch Runner signs with Southern Lord
Despite its reputation as a stable for slow, pensive, exploratory metal acts such as Earth and Sunn O))), the record label Southern Lord has recently embraced the opposite extreme, signing some of the fastest and most pummeling punk-metal crossover acts around: Nails, Dead in the Dirt, Kromosom and All Pigs Must Die. Southern Lord recently […]
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Talking about instruments with Zeke Graves of Datahata
Graves opens for fingerstyle guitarists Daniel Bachman and Peter Walker at Nightlight, Sunday, Feb. 9, at 8 p.m. LOCATION: His new home studio, Durham, N.C. AGE: 37 KNOWN FOR: Electric guitar explorations and traditional acoustic music under his own name; chilly, minimal techno as Datahata INFLUENCES: Richard Thompson, Pentangle, Krautrock, Manuel Göttsching, Lee “Scratch” Perry, […]
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Solar Halos’ Solar Halos
In October 2012, the new trio Solar Halos released a short set of rough, promising demos online, quickly earning favorable attention locally and beyond. The trio’s bona fidesarea veterans of Horseback, Fin Fang Foom, Bellafea, Caltrop and the Curtains of Nightdidn’t hurt, but the band’s distinct approach to heavy music helped more. “We talked about […]
