Rolling Stone

from rollingstone.com

Gabriel fans hoping for a follow-up to 2002's Up will have to keep waiting. Big Blue Ball is neither new nor is it strictly Gabriel, although the pioneering art rocker's aesthetic stamp (and, on four songs, his voice) is all over this global-music mosaic.

from rollingstone.com

It may strut its funky virtuosity like Prince, threaten to collapse in a drunken heap like the Replacements or rage like Hüsker Dü, but Minneapolis rock is always tuneful — an important comfort to folks freezing their nuts off most of the year.

from rollingstone.com

All low-fi screeching and girl-group cooing, 1993's unlikely hit "Cannonball" was the great pop single Kim Deal's other band, the Pixies, never allowed themselves. Her nasal stoner-girl come-on — "I'll be your whatever-you-want/The bong in this reggae song" — set a nation of Converse-wearing misfits swooning.
Now, sisters Kim and Kelley Deal reconvene for a set that steals home while the reunited Pixies play footsie in the studio waiting room.

from rollingstone.com

The two Austin dudes in Ghostland Observatory like electro rock with extra drama — which might be why the duo's rhythm/production ace Thomas Turner often wears a cape. On their third disc, released on their own Trashy Moped label, they've got an over-the-top sound to match their style: Robotique Majestique is a sexy mash-up of Eighties synths, Euro pop-metal hooks and twenty-first-century sleaze.

from rollingstone.com

Prospects were poor for what turns out to be an overflowing song bag of an album by Lynyrd Skynyrd's arty nephews. Their last winner was 2004's The Dirty South, preceded by two others in close succession but followed by the disoriented A Blessing and a Curse and then the loss of tenor-songwriter Jason Isbell.

from rollingstone.com

Getting the entire Wu-Tang Clan together seems as tough a challenge as acing the SATs or making Thom Yorke laugh. So it's remarkable enough that the new Wu-Tang album — the Staten Island crew's first in six years — actually exists. What's more, 8 Diagrams is better than most would have expected: