Viking Storm, pt. II (Hammer No More The Fingers, The Future Kings of Nowhere, The Dry Heathens, Deleted Scenes, The Beast) Duke Coffeehouse, Durham Saturday, April 4 Hammer No More The Fingers could have been upstaged. There was the matter of the 16-foot Viking warshipresting across the Duke Coffeehouse stage, adorned with shields representing each […]
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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Live: Viking Storm, pt. I: Tooth leaves an impression
Viking Storm, pt. I (Tooth, Caverns, The Bronzed Chorus, Pink Flag) The Pinhook, Durham Friday, April 3 Mere observation be damned. As Durham powerhouse Tooth packed itself onto the cramped Pinhook stagerightfully headlining night one of Viking Stormthe band’s charged gallop churned every body, mine included, in the front half of the room to a […]
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Butterflies’ Nothing’s Personal
“For you, I’ll go and dig up my old roller-blades/ I’m taking off work for the weekend,” Butterflies frontman Josh Kimbrough promises during “Relive Brielle,” perhaps the best song on his band’s Nothing’s Personal. Musically, the song is uncharacteristic of the band, its electric charge proving an unexpected counterpoint to the rest of the album’s […]
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Live: Harvey Milk, “a baptism in tone and volume”
Harvey Milk, Black Skies, Pontiak Local 506, Chapel Hill Friday, Feb. 27 Harvey Milk is a band to feel live more than see: Sure ,the unassuming trio, in its old jeans and novelty T-shirts (singer/guitarist Creston Spiers’ read “Lord of the Strings”), was animated and personable on stage Friday, cracking smiles and spreading surprising affability […]
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Whatever Brains’ Soft Dick City cassette
Also reviewed: Whatever Brains’ Mt. Whatever 7″ (Bull City Records) In the half-hour it takes to hear Whatever Brains’ Soft Dick Citya spray-painted, cassette-only release bookended by a screeching Urinals cover and a Johnny Cash sound-collage sabotagethere’s little question what this Raleigh quartet is about: This is a band that can’t sit still. From The […]
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The whole rock-star idol thing ain’t so big for Dexter Romweber
Listen up! If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. ⇒ Read also: “Aged and more adventurous, The Old Ceremony makes its best record yet” Dexter Romweber answers the door of his blue, wood-paneled house, his glasses perched upon his loose pompadour, flecked gently with gray. The unbuttoned collar of […]
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I Was Totally Destroying It’s Done Waiting
Something happened to I Was Totally Destroying It in the past year, as though the band collectively decided its career had better be more than a few Cradle shows and local adulation (or derision, depending on whom you ask) after releasing its full-length debut in 2007. The tight, precise, polished power-pop the band peddles is […]
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Former Ben Folds Five drummer Darren Jessee, in New York, on North Carolina
Darren Jessee has one foot out his front door. He’s leaving his Brooklyn apartment with his bandmates to grab a late lunch the day after his band, Hotel Lights, played a show in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Jessee in motion: It’s a fitting introduction to his music and his band, whose name evokes a sense […]
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Hotel Lights’ Firecracker People
⇒ Read also: “Former Ben Folds Five drummer Darren Jessee, in New York, on North Carolina” Understatement defines the aesthetic of the second Hotel Lights album, Firecracker People. From Darren Jessee’s whispered croondelivered as if he’s singing only to himselfto his backing band’s delicate, smooth arrangementsgiven a country tinge by drummer Zeke Hutchins and bassist […]
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Jason Adamo’s Sunflower
Though Jason Adamo’s latest EP, Sunflower, is bookended by two versions of the same song, “Purple Sky,” and though I’ve listened to both versions no less than 10 times each, I still couldn’t tell you how either version goes. There’s nothing there that snags the ear, no clever turns of phrase, no melodic grabs, no […]
