If there’s any single standout thoughout, it’s producer Alonzo Tucker who coaxes greatness out of what would be the band’s only offering. That their follow-up would never see the light of day is a testament to the album’s lightning-in-a-bottle excellence.

Whatever happened to good Winston- Salem power-pop? The Camel City’s exports of simple, well-executed riffs used to rival that of tobacco, but once hardcore became the prevailing musical pursuit in the late ’80s, the hook-y rock that dominated most of the previous two decades quietly declined.

The marriage of jazz aesthetics and heavy metal restraint (or lack thereof) has historically favored scorched-earth finality that values visceral effect over pure composition, so it’s not surprising that that corner of fusion has long occupied the margins.

On one hand, the ability to create coherency out of the joining of numbers and letters is soundly rooted in cognitive psychological theory. You see the word “towers” regardless of the substitution of numbers for letters. Shapes are what matter most.

Show me a holiday that isn’t a poorly disguised cash grab and I’ll show you Iggy Pop with a shirt on. It only makes sense that Pop would the official ambassador of the 4th annual Record Store Day, happening at purveyors of new vinyl everywhere on Saturday.

There’s little doubt that we live in a distinguished time for acoustic and bluegrass music. Twenty-five years ago, the great young pickers of our day would have been teasing their hair out and stuffing themselves into leather pants in preparation to play awful music specifically geared for picking up high school girls.

Possum Jenkins will perform at Ziggy’s on Friday in support of Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit..

Mike Dean, Woody Weatherman, Reed Mullin. It’s been 27 years since the album credits on a Corrosion of Conformity record were so simple. The Raleigh thrash meal outfit’s turnstile lineup has made a handful of classics over the years, all depending on who you ask.

The Malamondos will support Southern Culture On the Skids at the Blind Tiger this Saturday, St. Patrick’s Day..

Joe Thompson left this Earth only a week before the fourth album by his young protégés the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Leaving Eden,.

Carolina Chocolate Drops co-founder Justin Robinson’s outright split last year from the Grammy-winning string band might have been surprising on some level, but it’s hard to blame for going out on top.

blues and boogie is like caging a bull with chicken wire; sooner or later they’re gong to bust out. Pianist and music professor Dave Fox self-interned for his quirky but fun album with his new project the Meldavians. Entitled Farewell Arigemon,.

Let this be a lesson: Early incarnations of band bios are about as trustworthy as election year rhetoric. Searching for the early- to mid-’90s alt-rock and post-rock influences that the Quiet Brace assert are present on their self-titled debut EP is about as fruitful as the search for water on Mars.

The rear cover of American Gonzos self-titled debut album gives almost as much insight into their story as the music itself does: three bros chilling on an anatopic couch in a setting that’s somehow both an example of bucolic country living and urban stagnation.

Economy of both music and words abound in Mebane duo Be the Moon’s debut release, creating an absorbing, if somewhat uneven blanket of warm, familiar Americana to wrap up in.

You know the truly great R&B and soul singers have a way of distinguishing themselves on record in a way that there’s no mistaking them. Bobby Womack’s plaintive melisma at the beginning of Across 110th Street.

In their attempt to run away screaming from the pop-punk status quo of music so empty and insincere that anyone could write it, the Radio Reds made an EP last spring that was dogged primarily by the unwieldy, inscrutable themes it tackled.

Seven mixtapes. That’s a fairly impressive discography for a veteran rapper, but it’s mindboggling to consider that’s what DC emcee and Guilford College student Beau Young has done before even hitting the legal drinking age with yet another on the way.

“Quiet Friends� starts off like the soundtrack to a gondola ride in Venice and quickly turns into the melody from Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire� set to Gregorian chants.

Given how quick the music press has been to stigmatize rock-reggae hybrids in recent years, it’s fitting that the genre experiences a mini resurgence thanks to the introduction of a few new ideas. Among the bands making the strongest music is the Silver Springs, Md.