Ryan Reed

Dates in U.S. and Canada promote prog-metal band's 2019 LP, 'Fear Inoculum.'

Power-pop track features vocal hook from Jett's 1980 cut "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)"

With its cold, sprawling interior and 7,000-plus arena-styled seating, Asheville's U.S. Cellular Center is an ideal showcase for a WWE brawl or a pre-season NBA game.

For such a huge f---ing band, the Polyphonic Spree make surprisingly disciplined music. The 10 tracks on 'Yes, It's True,' the psych-pop ensemble's fourth full-length, unfurl with a subtlety and tastefulness that defies their sprawling 21-person line-up. This is the band's tightest, most focused batch of tunes to date, and they mostly avoid the bloated, over-orchestrated excess that occasionally p

Heaven have solid songs but zero passion. The Brooklyn dream-pop band's debut LP, 'Telepathic Love,' is tuneful but lifeless, with nine solid hooks strangled by lethargic vocals and mind-numbing reverb. There's no emotion, no urgency, no dynamics.

Alexis Taylor is a goddamn enigma. When he's not busy reconfiguring the parameters of electro-pop in Hot Chip, he's moonlighting in About Group -- his haggard, polarizing free-jazz anti-supergroup. 'Between the Walls,' the band's third album, finds the quartet (Taylor, former This Heat drummer Charles Hayward, Spiritualized guitarist John Coxon and electronic whiz Pat Thomas) in their usual headsp

Leave it to Bell X1 -- Ireland's second-favorite alt-rock heartthrobs -- to soundtrack the apocalypse with a disco beat. 'The End is Nigh' closes the band's sixth studio album with that quintessential bread 'n' butter blend -- anthemic hooks and quirky emoting: "Who would make the cut / When our time is up?," sings frontman Paul Mooney, his elastic tenor quivering over the band's earnest

When Omar Rodriguez-Lopez recently parted ways with prog-rock experimentalists the Mars Volta, fans were understandably baffled. As Volta's guitarist, composer, producer and overall sonic dictator, Lopez already had free reign to create whatever style of nutso music he desired...

Mood Rings do the whole “reverb-worshipping guitar-pop” thing better than most. But the best moments on ‘VPI Harmony’ suggest they’re capable of way, way more.

When critics write about Sigur Ros, they often focus on the easy bullet points: the band's Icelandic heritage (along with its lazy accompanying imagery: wafting glaciers, massive boulders, deserted landscapes), singer Jonsi's cosmic falsetto, and their occasional use of gibberish vocalizations (which critics themselves dubbed "Hopelandic"). But Sigur Ros' music has never fit easily into