Lars Gotrich

It was 95 degrees in unforgiving heat, with teenagers and twentysomethings packed under a festival tent that did little more than cover our heads. Inexplicably, the musicians onstage were dressed in full suits and turtlenecks as they hurled themselves into every beat, the vocalist punctuating every word with ...

In Zhuangzi's Qi Wu Lun, the Daoist philosopher writes, "When the wind blows, every sound may be heard therein." Beijing's Chui Wan takes its name from that text — and similarly breathes in every sound to exhale a dazzling collage.

The band's roots are in psychedelic fuzz, but on its ...

Daniel Bachman calls Durham, N.C., home now, but he grew up around the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg. It's a quiet town in Northern Virginia that still has a pharmacy with cheap sandwiches and milkshakes; but, as Bachman pointed out to us, it has more tattoo parlors than music stores ...

If there's one takeaway from this video for Rone's "Acid Reflux," it's this: Don't eat the psychedelic sushi. (Or eat it, if that's your thing.)

Directed by by Ilan Cohen in collaboration with Boris Levy, the video is set in a muted Japanese cityscape like something out of Blade Runner, ...

When one demon's light dims, another is illuminated. A collective "well, dammit," was heard throughout Rifflandia (not a real place, but stick with me) when The Oath called it quits, as the band's white-hot debut album barely cooled. Thankfully, vocalist Johanna Sadonis wasted no time assembling a crew rooted ...

The camera slowly pulls back from a laundromat washing machine with suds surging red, as the downbeat cuts to a big, bloody knife and splattered bathroom wall. It's an intense yet carefully crafted opening to violence implied and violence dreamed. We never see the act, but in the video for ...

If we're always listening, we're always changing. Last year was a time of transformation for Circuit des Yeux's Haley Fohr, as she toured to support the self-released Overdue. After a solo set at the Hopscotch Music Festival in September left her questioning both the crowd's intentions and her own, ...

Bring a nice camera if you're going to Iceland. That's the setting of the gorgeously shot video for "The Drive Home," the opening track to Bandit's debut album, Of Life.

The video shimmers quietly on dark highways amid endless skies and a trumpet's countermelody. But just as you start ...

When you're underwater, blurred images and sounds have a way of coming into their own focus. It's disconcerting at first: The current moves in an unknown rhythm, and then it becomes your center. That's where J.R. Bohannon's music undulates gracefully as Ancient Ocean. From his first offering on vinyl, Blood ...

Guys, the sticky is not the only thing on Weedeater's mind. Truth is, these Southern sludge rabble-rousers have been through some hard times — health scares, a lost member — but that doesn't shake up their fifth album, Goliathan. At 1:47, "Bully" isn't technically Weedeater's shortest song (if you count ...

KEN mode has always been a noise-rock band that could hang with the metal crowd. The Winnipeg trio often bolsters its heavy, angular riffs with burly bass lines and muscular drumming, and knows when to bring the grind. But with its sixth album, Success, KEN mode scales back its ...

After last year's killer "What You Want" — one of NPR Music's favorite songs of 2014 — Sheer Mag returns with another four-song EP. Its lead-off track, "Fan The Flames," answers the question, "What if we gave this Thin Lizzy riff a disco beat?" Now, we're ...

It took seven years for Robotic Empire to finish its tribute to Nirvana's In Utero, featuring covers by Thursday, Jay Reatard, Ceremony and Thou. With a lineup like that, it's no wonder the vinyl sold out quickly on Record Store Day. So with that momentum, the ...

After two decades in punk rock, Jeff Burke still writes songs with the ecstatic energy of a kid picking up a guitar for the first time. Among the Denton, Texas, guitarist and singer's several bands, the most beloved is the currently dormant The Marked Men, which is why the similar ...

In the movie Under The Skin, Scarlett Johansson's alien character lures men to their fate in a pure-black space. These scenes are striking in their stark beauty, with all parties accepting their compulsion into the unknown as bodies step downward into a fathomless black ooze. In Circuit des Yeux's ...

When Amebix returned after two decades with 2011's Sonic Mass, it was an adventurous take on the crust-punk legacy the English band had left behind. Unfortunately, it was the only album to come out of the reunion, but that lush, brooding, melodic sound continues and evolves with Tau Cross, bassist/vocalist ...

James Snyder writes songs as if he were in the room next door — hushed and vulnerable in his own space, but aware and perhaps even thrilled that someone might be listening. With Beach Slang, these uplifting confessionals become euphoric punk anthems about squeezing every second out of life. ...

D.C. hardcore is ridiculous right now. Coke Bust, Pure Disgust, Protester, Collusion, Public Suicide, Misled Youth, Give — these are just a few of the bands ruling the basements of the city, ...

Baby-faced and rail-thin, Lee Bozeman didn't look like the kind of guy who would ram a microphone stand into the floor. But in the '90s, when Luxury got to "Flaming Youth Flames On" in its set list, the guitar came off and the sweetly gut-punching crooner flailed his ...

When you play punk rock with someone for 10 years, communication goes beyond words: The heart speaks through fingers and screams. Joey Doubek and Ashley Arnwine have a long history together in the D.C. punk bands Mass Movement Of The Moth and their own duo, Ingrid, but with ...