Lars Gotrich

There are a couple moments in "Where Mountains Pierce the Sky" — after nine minutes of acoustic guitar, fiddle and Native American flute, what could conceivably be called a black metal riff with a pop-punk bounce and flurry of twin lead guitars — that clue you into Roads to the ...

For a band that went into hiding for a decade, Witch Mountain sure has made up for lost time. They're "just old fogies that never gave up," drummer Nate Carson told me in 2011 as the Portland, Ore.-based doom metal band prepared to release South of Salem, an ...

If emo has cheerleaders, they're Keith and Cathy Latinen. Since 2007, the Michigan-based husband and wife have tirelessly run the Count Your Lucky Stars label during a time when the genre didn't have many vocal supporters. Many of its releases have inspired bands in the now-thriving young scene ...

Marisa Anderson knows where American guitar music has been and where it is now, and probably possesses an inkling of where it can go. She's studied the history and musical nuance of blues, country and folk music through and through, and ingests it all in a style that's as ...

It's been 20 years since the stoner-metal caravan Sleep wrote Dopesmoker, a 63-minute track based on a single riff and dedicated to the mighty spliff. Unfortunately, it took three labels and a span of 16 years to release it as intended. So let's just follow ...

Carmen Lundy's contralto voice perfectly conveys the soul and depth of her compositions. She joined Piano Jazz host Marian McPartland in 1999 to perform Mary Lou's Mass by Mary Lou Williams at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

In this Piano Jazz session from 2000, Lundy teams ...

Never Hungover Again begins with a cold open — just a one-second chord and vocalist/guitarist Barry Johnson "looking at your face in the dark" — of a lanky pop song that already seems to be in progress. Joyce Manor has never been one to extend the drama, with albums shorter ...

Daniel Bachman hits the road hard and plays harder. His instrumental rags are acoustic pile-drivers that rage with wonder, but his quieter songs can be just as powerful.

Filmed by Jesse Sheppard at St. George's Episcopal Church in downtown Fredericksburg, Va., the guitarist recently sat down with a slide ...

Let's get one thing out of the way: Braid in 2014 is not Braid in 1999. As an album title, No Coast is either a clever turn on geographic identification or a challenge to reunited '90s bands not to rest on their laurels. As Braid returns with its first ...

Pallbearer's Sorrow and Extinction was one of 2012's most heartbreaking metal records — equal parts Black Sabbath and Candlemass in its stately sad-bastard doom. But those masterful twin-lead guitars, the funeral-paced riffs, and Brett Campbell's gripping voice sometimes got buried in the mix. With producer Billy Anderson ...

As much as metal continues to expand outward, taking influences from within and outside its heavy foundations, adjective-happy genres like "blackened sludge-thrash" or "crusty stoner-doom" or what-have-you eventually inhabit their own mashed-together signifiers. It's where experimentation loses ground and has the potential to become streamlined. From Mortals' second album, Cursed ...

Dorthia Cottrell is one of the most haunting vocalists in metal right now, howling like Ozzy Osbourne in a wind tunnel. But either out of aesthetics or shyness, her voice has always been buried by the relentlessly heavy mix on her two excellent records singing for Windhand. Thankfully, some ...

Director Chris Strong took his inspiration for the video directly from the album's darkly glowing artwork:

The video for "Never Meant" takes place in Urbana, Ill., circa 1999. It is a song about breaking up, moving on and forgetting, so I made a story about a brief relationship occurring ...

A great cover song can read between the lines, offer an unexpected twist or completely re-contextualize meaning. But sometimes the best covers don't fuss with lush arrangements, altered melodies or — ugh — ukuleles. After all, you can't improve upon a great riff, right?

For ...

We're only five years away from Ridley Scott's 1982 vision of a retro-futuristic Los Angeles, when all that stands between human and biorobotic android is the Voight-Kampff machine. But the dark tones and moral ambiguity of Blade Runner never left the film's cult fans — particularly those beguiled ...

Clint Eastwood is best known for his work in Hollywood, but he's also a composer and jazz aficionado. Combining his love of both art forms, he's included classic jazz recordings in his films — including Play Misty for Me, which features the famous Errol Garner ballad.

On this episode ...

Deep Fantasy comes out June 17 on Domino Records.

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At the office, in the classroom, in line at the bank, at your own wedding — there's really no wrong place to play air guitar. But the best spot is on public transportation, when you're crammed into a mass of unknown bodies about to experience the fury of a righteous ...

We're now at the point where there's a good possibility that any of your most favorite (or most hated) '90s bands will give it another go. The shows can be great for fans new and old, but we sometimes grit our teeth when that band wants to hit the studio ...

It's been four years since Agalloch released Marrow of the Spirit, a spectacular record that exposed the cultish metal band to a wider audience seeking something ritualistic and caustic in heavy music. For all of its lengthy and textured songs, Marrow kept things fairly linear — thrilling in its ...