Aug 04, 2009 By Matt Fink Issue #27 Summer 2009 - Jarvis Cocker

He's made a career out of examining every thread in the tapestry of British life, so it should surprise no one that Jarvis Cocker likes to ask questions. More

Aug 04, 2009 By Kyle Lemmon Web Exclusive

Portland, Oregon's The Thermals may dub their fourth release, Now We Can See, "post-power-pop" but that doesn't mean they're so over the '90s. In fact, they embrace everything from "Basketcase" to Pinkerton, on or off stage. Now with a new record label (Kill Rock Stars) and yet another new drummer (Say Hi's Westin Glass), Kathy Foster and Hutch Harris are making the festival rounds this summer. More

Aug 02, 2009 By Lorraine Carpenter Issue #27 Summer 2009 - Jarvis Cocker

At 62, Iggy Pop is the last wild man of rock 'n' roll standing, and rarely standing still. More

Jul 30, 2009 By John Everhart Winter 2009 - Anticipated Albums of 2009

Sure, it’s easy to pin down the provenance of Auckland, New Zealand act Surf City’s self-titled debut EP. There are delectable dashes of Pavement-style melodies, nods to the roughshod pop of the ’80s Flying Nun roster, and elements of the stomping tribal rhythms of Animal Collective. The band’s frontman Davin Stoddard admits this, but he’s unapologetic. “Those are all bands we’re into, a common thread among us all. A song like ‘Dickshakers Union,’ we got the idea from Animal Collective, and thought it was a great song. Some people said, ‘fuck, this sounds just like Animal Collective,’ and others said, ‘we dig it, it’s a great pop song.’” More

Jul 17, 2009 By Paul Bullock Winter 2009 - Anticipated Albums of 2009

Kent, England’s It Hugs Back make smart, positive indie rock that waves back to the major Matador Records and Merge Records acts of the early ’90s while moving forward in exciting new directions. After settling on their name with some advice from Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon (after a chance meeting at the Tate Modern in London), the band has slowly built up speed with an increasingly interesting series of releases that recall the intelligence, charm, and humor of acts like Teenage Fanclub and Pavement.

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Jul 16, 2009 By Chris Tinkham Web Exclusive

Tegan and Sara plan to master their sixth studio album, Sainthood, at the beginning of August and release it at the end of October. Tegan Quin spoke with Under the Radar this morning to update us with some of the basic details and offer her impressions of the new music. More

Jul 09, 2009 By Paul Bullock Winter 2009 - Anticipated Albums of 2009

“There’s a way to write a love song differently… there’re so many different kinds of love songs. And I think specifically with this album, this album is a lot about love and a lot about… finding the antidote to misery,” says Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos. He then adds with a chuckle, “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t embrace love as an antidote to your problems when you are a depressed, miserable person.” More

Jul 03, 2009 By Mark Redfern Web Exclusive

When Welsh actress Eve Myles recently found out she was pregnant, she made sure that her baby was of this Earth. "We checked on the scan that it was a human and was not an alien," Myles jokes. Gwen Cooper, the secret government agent that Myles plays on the British sci-fi show Torchwood, was pregnant with an alien baby last season, so Myles jokes that her mother was especially pleased to know fiction wasn't bleeding over to reality. More

Jul 02, 2009 By John Everhart Winter 2009 - Anticipated Albums of 2009

From their nebulous beginnings as cut-up pranksters, employing Felliniesque stage prop stunts like stairmasters and smoke-breathing wolf heads as well as an extemporaneous set of band names (NRA, Robert Redford, Tower of Girls), the wildly eclectic Glaswegian sextet The Phantom Band have gradually metamorphosed into a proper band and settled on the appropriately elusive moniker. Now they’ve got a great debut LP, Checkmate Savage, to show for it. More