[This piece originally appeared in the Rage. Because I'd just written a longer piece on VH for another magazine and had my text butchered, I "recycled" much of it for this piece.]

Venus Hum – the electro-pop trio of Kip Kubin, Tony Miracle and Annette Strean - may very well be Nashville’s ambassadors of goodwill. At once, they defy expectations of what a “Nashville” band would sound like and also represent all the great things about our town’s music scene. (more…)

[This piece originally appeared in The Rage.]

There’s a real risk in unfolding one’s songs as slowly, quietly and deliberately as Neilson Hubbard does on his third solo album Sing Into Me. “Careful” doesn’t begin to describe the type of balancing act that Hubbard pulls off. (more…)

It seems a bit unfair to critique Mil Millington’s Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About based on its ending. The finale is not a let-down but it isn’t the closure that one might want. Millington, after all, has spent the entire novel building tensions. His protagonist, Pel Dalton, is promoted from from one job he doesn’t understand to another that’s even murkier where he finds he must deal with some unsavory people. He has two young boys who ride his nerves. He gets robbed. And of course, there are the innumerable arguments with his German girlfriend, Ursula.
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[This piece originally appeared in the Rage.]

Between the grungey angst of the first half of the 1990s and the polished pop and packaged aggro of the latter half, Sleater-Kinney’s arrival in the middle of the 90s almost starts to make sense. Listeners could trace their jagged guitar riffs and Janet Weiss’s hyperkinetic drumming from post-punk luminaries like Fugazi and Black Flag. Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein’s dueling vocals had precedent in riot-grrl stalwarts like Bratmobile and Bikini Kill. What was tough to pin down for critics and even fans was how Sleater-Kinney had taken these dissonant elements of underground punk music and forged such tenacious hooks with them. There are few moments on their records where Sleater-Kinney play identifiable pop music. Still, listeners have discovered in droves how S-K’s criss-crossing guitar lines and vocals bury themselves in your memory. Sleater-Kinney has created a sound entirely their own which polished dissonant punk into a sharp, unforgettable package. (more…)