Elbow, “Little Fictions.” Formed in 1997, Manchester, England group Elbow is back with its sixth full-length release, Little Fictions. Having found their overall sound in the beginning, Elbow never veered too far away from what it showed on its 2001 debut, Asleep in the Back. Little Fictions Elbow The band…

Lydia Loveless performs at the Independent in San Francisco on Jan. 28, 2017. Photos: Roman Gokhman SAN FRANCISCO — Lydia Loveless started creating her style of alt-country just at the turn of the decade, but has since grown a following of both old country-traditionalists and the new Americana generation. Loveless headlined a show…

Cloud Nothings‘ newest album, Life Without Sound, is their most cleanly produced and softest effort yet. Cloud Nothings has blended indie rock, post-hardcore, pop-punk and emo throughout their whole discography. With each album, they shifted the potency of each genre around to create a fresh sound, but none of…

With a new album, Foxygen also bring a new sound. Wearing their oldies influence on their sleeves, Foxygen ditches the ’70s psychedelia and strikes for an even older vein: ’60s baroque-pop. Similar to Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys, The Zombies and Scott Walker, Foxygen uses a wide array of instrumentation—mostly piano and…

Death Grips As this year comes to an end, we had our own man in the band, Michael Massaro of San Francisco garage rockers GRMLN, pick his five favorite songs of 2016. “Plastiglomerate & Co.” — James Ferraro In Far Side Virtual, James Ferraro used more sounds coming from 1980s synthesizers to…