Album/Song Reviews
Modern Drummer is the world’s most widely read drum magazine, is dedicated entirely to the art of drumming and caters to the needs of amateur, semi-pro, and professional drummers.
Billy Cobham Compass Point
With a backstory including a dangerous makeshift stage and a lottery-winning piano tuner who had quit a day earlier, this 1997 concert almost didn’t happen. And that would have been a great loss, since Billy Cobham and his superb band…
Marc Cary Focus Trio Four Directions
One of today’s most original and innovative pianists, Marc Cary embraces the whole of jazz history as well as diverse “world” elements. Playing predominantly acoustic piano along with Rhodes and subtle synth touches, Cary shapes intriguing harmonies and captivating melodies…
Dumpstaphunk Dirty Word
Dumpstaphunk pays tribute to funk groundbreakers such as Parliament/Funkadelic and Sly and the Family Stone, but with an updated sound that’s peppered with rock and second line. The nuclear driver is drummer Nikki Glaspie. Laying down hard-slamming yet finessed time,…
Robert Wyatt ’68
The tracks on this collection were recorded shortly after Wyatt’s band Soft Machine had broken up—temporarily, it would turn out—following a tour of the States with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In fact, Wyatt worked on the tunes while staying at…
Kneebody The Line
In its sputtering rhythms and swirling melodies, Kneebody is a freely roaming polyglot touching on Live-Evil-era Miles Davis, Rudder (particularly the contemporary art-funk band’s drummer, Keith Carlock), the British prog band Gentle Giant, various aggregates of hip-hop, and jam-band hypnosis.…
Taking the Reins
Camille Gainer-Jones A Girl From Queens The solo debut by Camille Gainer-Jones, a Steve Coleman, Lonnie Liston Smith, and Roberta Flack vet, sounds like a house party, with instruments and vocals delivering a sometimes raucous blend. There’s an old-school Marvin…
The Running Jumps The Consciousness Set
The “about” section on this L.A. band’s Facebook page does well by comparing their music to the’60s psychedelic pop sounds of the Beatles and Zombies and ’90s indie-rock heavies such as Guided By Voices and Superdrag. They could easily add…
Jonathan Scales Fourquestra
The cover art’s mirror-reverse title script and fanciful imagery seem to suggest we’re down the rabbit hole. Maybe not Wonderland, but certainly an alternate universe. Inventive steel pan player Jonathan Scales delivers a disc that’s dazzling, shaded with surprising sonorities,…
Sublime 3 Ring Circus: Live at the Palace, October 21, 1995
Sublime is that rare band that enjoyed most of its success and acclaim after breaking up. Following the death by heroin overdose of vocalist and guitarist Bradley Nowell on May 25, 1996, the remaining members, drummer Bud Gaugh and bassist…
Queens of the Stone Age …Like Clockwork
After a six-year absence, Queens of the Stone Age are back with a new sound on their latest record, …Like Clockwork. The ten-track album came with its fair share of trials and tribulations, though. Complications from a knee surgery back…
Intronaut Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words With Tones)
Prime musicianship and haunting melodies make excellent bedfellows, especially when mixed with mesmerizing polyrhythms and punishing heaviness. On Intronaut’s latest, drummer Danny Walker proves that he’s perfectly suited for whatever feel is waiting around the next corner. The infectiously jilting…
Rival Sons Head Down
CD The L.A. band Rival Sons derives its inspiration from the era when rock was the sole playground of mannish boys with big-ol’ bell bottoms and bigger Afros. On their second long-player, drummer Michael Miley and crew continue to…
Metal Drumming Concepts: Vital Beats, Exercises, Fills, Tips & Techniques by Andols Herrick
BOOK/DVD LEVEL: ALL $16.99 Andols Herrick, who spent many years behind the kit for the metal band Chimaira, covers the ground that drummers who play heavy music must tread, including double bass creativity and developing blast beats. Along with…
Mice Parade Candela
CD/ALBUM Drummer/multi-instrumentalist Adam Pierce leads this indie band through an array of catchy, song-based tunes and experimental arrangements highlighting a stylized sense of craft and musicianship. On “Pretending,” Pierce opens with some soft left-hand doubles that he moves…
