San Francisco punks Dead to Me drop their Clash-inspired sound and change up the buzz saw guitars for stop-start riffs that suggest they’ve been spinning a lot of Gang of Four in their rehearsal space. “Tierra del Fuego” is filled with jittery funk riffs, as is “A Day Without a War,” a plea for peace in which singer-bassist Chicken howls, “We’ll never be safe again.” There are still plenty of nods to Joe Strummer and gang, especially as Dead to Me explore world music influences. They slip through dub on opener “X” and bring Latin influences to “California Sun.” Don’t miss “Cruel World,” Chicken’s Replacements-like musing on the state of the world.
Heidi Minx interviews Dave "Jailhouse" Johnson about his social activism.
Finally, a shooter that drops the half-baked sci-fi story and lets the bullets fly. The mission in Borderlands is self-explanatory: The barren world of Pandora holds untold alien treasures, and your job is to find them. Choose one of four characters, take the safety off your weapon, and start shooting your way through baddies in the barren Mad Max–like setting. Your reward? Loot. Tons of it, including more than 3 million weapon combinations, such as shotguns with sniper scopes and rifles that shoot homing darts. With four-player drop-in/drop-out co-op, you can grind through 160 quests in randomly generated levels to collect the biggest arsenal of futuristic weaponry this side of Comic-Con.
Auto-Tune and soda commercials killed hip-hop. Now La Coka Nostra, a new cartel featuring five familiar faces, have set out to cook up what hip-hop has been missing.
When a young band like Paramore explodes out of nowhere (Franklin, TN?) there are always repercussions. On their third album, the group’s pint-sized singer with the giant voice, Hayley Williams, outlines the trail of mistrust and broken relationships. Fame has taught her that you “can’t be too careful anymore” (“Careful”), and later, on “Feeling Sorry,” she looks back at her small-town roots, firing, “I got out … and this could be you.” The music recalls early Fall Out Boy, but breaks come on tracks like “Misguided Ghosts,” an acoustic song that feels like a lost Jewel track. Later, Williams’s voice hits glass-shattering levels on closer “All I Wanted,” a sure Warped Tour hit. This only means one thing: More emo, more problems.
Under constant police threat with no access to autoclaves, needles, ink, or gloves, tattoo artist and skateboarder Che thrives in Cuba.
Heidi Minx interviews musician/ promoter/ manager/ Renaissance man, Freddy Cricien.