Lars Gotrich

Real talk: Scäb's "Franz Kafka" is the greatest cartoon rock opera ever. Originally featured on the Home Movies episode "Director's Cut" in 2001, the ridiculous three-minute, four-movement song about The Metamorphosis is equal parts "Bohemian Rhapsody" and Tommy, and warns, "Be careful if you get him ...

Writing a breakup album is one thing. Blood On The Tracks, 808s And Heartbreak, Domestica, Vulnicura — these records capture a heartbreaking perspective with power and clarity, but they each come from a singular voice. The breakup albums written in collaboration with a former ...

At SXSW, when a good portion of the crowd is likely drinking cheap beer, it's important to stay healthy — especially in the heat. That's why Chicago hip-hop artist Mick Jenkins wants you to stay hydrated. No, really. Water is not only his ritual; it's his life. ...

You're never too old to be sung to sleep. After a long, busy day, a quiet voice can put a weary body to rest. So in the late hours of the SXSW Music Festival, our team in Austin, Texas, asked a handful of musicians we love — Laura ...

While you catch up on our favorite discoveries from the SXSW Music Festival, watch late-night lullabies and sets from our showcase, you might want to keep another tab open. Run them jewels fast with El-P and Killer Mike, do the ...

Ryley Walker walks into the D.C. bar where his band is set to play, carrying two acoustic guitar cases and an amp. A friend, singer-songwriter Marian McLaughlin, offers help but Walker flashes a smile and says, "Nah, thanks, this is punk rock," then somehow extends a hand ...

Maybe it goes without saying, but if you're a musician and have time to kill on the road, you're going to hit up a record store in town. In Austin, Texas, there are many, many options to throw down cash for vinyl, and for Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield, her favorite ...

Waller Creek runs through downtown Austin, Texas, into Lady Bird Lake. It bustles with critters both furry and humanoid on a sunny day, but we took The Mynabirds' Laura Burhenn to the banks after midnight to sing us a lullaby. Looking like a mermaid with a Casio keyboard, she ...

After midnight at the SXSW Music Festival, when venues sweep up beer bottles and kick out the revelers, we're asking musicians for a song to end the night. Luluc's quiet folk songs are particularly made for these moments of calm, especially "Star" from last year's Passerby. It's a ...

Within the first minute, "War is a Romance" gives you everything you need to know if you're going to be onboard with Wild Throne: a deranged hardcore twang a la Converge, a galloping Motörhead riff, fusion-y Mars Volta-style guitar acrobatics — oh, and a whistle. And then there's ...

Over fuzzy guitars and a doo-wop beat, "I'm not what my daddy wants me to be" was one of the most understated yet resonant lines of 2014, from Mitski's late-year album Bury Me At Makeout Creek. It's also the inspiration for director Faye Orlove's animated video, which features hair clips, ...

With just an electric guitar and bass, Girlpool inhabits an entire ecosystem in the space of a bedroom. The single-note melodies are simple and quiet; their instruments are cheap, yet full of character. "Ideal World" comes from the duo's debut album, Before The World Was Big.

The song opens ...

Royal Thunder's "Time Machine" wields power from nuance. In just two albums, the Atlanta band has become a modern master of hard-rock restraint — no small feat given its affinity for psychedelic wandering and songs that typically wouldn't fit one side of a 7" single. Which is saying nothing ...

Marc Richter's music follows no line but its own. That's why it's a disservice to simply call it drone, as Black to Comm curves in multiple planes. Released quietly late last year, Black to Comm is the proper follow-up to 2009's Alphabet 1968 and his soundtrack work for EARTH; it's ...

Bosse-de-Nage's III was one of 2012's most exhilarating black-metal albums, with movement that lunged from ponderous post-rock to searing screamo mania without inhibition, even if it paradoxically came from an anxious state of mind. The Bay Area band's fourth full-length album (and first that isn't self-titled), All Fours, ...

Nick Halliwell has been sitting on The Granite Shore's debut album for nearly half a decade. Or, more to the point, he's been sidelined by producing new music from the '80s English guitar-pop band The June Brides, playing guitar in The Distractions and releasing it all on his own label, ...

There was a time in '90s hardcore when slam-dancing riffs gave way to melody and tempos that swayed like a ship at sea, confusing pit rituals in the process. Quicksand's Manic Compression and Jawbox's For Your Own Special Sweetheart are just a couple examples of this evolution, and it's somewhere ...

Ilyas Ahmed's music has always felt like a shadow. Since 2005, the Pakistani-born, Portland-based musician has cloaked his albums in a ghostly atmosphere that's at once warming and unsettling. His first new record in three years, I Am All Your Own, doesn't lose that spirit, but does lift Ahmed's lilting ...

How do you handle a breakup? Get a new haircut? How about a tattoo? Get sloshed? Crash some hippies' coffeehouse show with a rip-roaring guitar solo? Kill a man? All options are on the table as Summer Cannibals singer-guitarist Jessica Boudreaux drinks and fights her way through the night in ...

In the land grab that was the early '90s Seattle grunge scene, TAD was the hard rock band caught up in the groundswell. And how could you miss them? Bummer melodies cloaked in giant riffs, a juvenile sense of humor (see: God's Balls, 8-Way Santa) and the larger-than-life frontman Tad ...