Dig Me Out: 90s & 00s Rock

There are independent artists, and then there is  Ani DiFranco . Forging her own path since starting  Righteous Babe Records  at age nineteen, busking tapes out of the back of her car in Buffalo, NY, DiFranco has remained as proficient and relevant for three decades. After a string of critically acclaimed albums and a well received live album, she released Little Plastic Castle in 1998 and was nom...

Like so many previous artists and bands referred to as "power pop,"  The Tories  debut album Wonderful Life from 1997 came and went with little fanfare. Perhaps it was timing, as the early and mid-nineties alternative rock gold rush led to a unwieldy number of releases, most which got lost in the shuffle. Perhaps it was due to the label, which specialized in East Coast jazz and house music instead...

"We live in urban hell, we destroy rock and roll." Those were the closing sentiments of the 1991 single Motown Junk by the  Manic Street Preachers , a band of Welsh nihilist iconoclasts who declared greatness from the start, aligning themselves with The Clash, Public Enemy and Guns n' Roses. Four albums and the disappearance of one member later, the band was no longer a confrontational blitzkrieg....

There was a brief flicker of a moment at the end of the 90s, before the garage rock rival of The Strokes and White Stripes, before the post-post-punk of Interpol and Bloc Party, before Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional took emo to the mainstream, that the American underground punk of the New Bomb Turks and Rocket From The Crypt were going to have their moment. At the same time, across the...

It's time to travel back twenty years and revisit the albums of 1998. What albums were overlooked upon release that have gained critical acclaim and fans in the years since? Which albums were big releases that have stood the test of time, and which ones have failed that same test? Are there albums we bought back in 1998 and immediately regretted the purchase? And what are our favorite albums from...

We haven't reviewed much (or any) European progressive gothic doom metal shoegaze trip-hop, so thanks to our latest  Patreon  pick, we're checking out the 1998 double-album How to Measure a Planet? by  The Gathering . The question we ask is - how to measure a band that is equal parts Massive Attack, the Cocteau Twins, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Dream Theater and Slowdive? What we do know is that in th...

On their third full-length album, Adelaide, Australia's  The Mark Of Cain  enlisted  Henry Rollins  to produce their  rooArt  debut, 1995's Ill At Ease. The band scored a number one on the independent album chart and managed two successful  Triple J  singles. Recalling Rollins work with his own  Rollins Band , as well as post-hardcore bands such as  Helmet  and  Quicksand , Ill At Ease succeeds an...

Another season is complete, so we’re looking back at our favorite album discoveries, roundtables, interviews and more from 2017. We also pick our five favorite tunes from season seven, which featured everything from the guitar power pop of Brendan Benson and pop punk of Ruth Ruth to the Indian-meets-Britpop sounds of Cornershop and alternative fuzz of Violetine. We also give a sneak peak of 2018 -...

Formed after the untimely death of Stevie Ray Vaughan,  Arc Angels  pick-up the Texas blues-rock torch on their 1992 self-titled release. Pairing the seasoned rhythm section of drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon with guitarist and singers Doyle Bramhall II and Charlie Sexton, the band expands upon Vaughan’s blues template and mildly dips its toes in more pop and radio friendly territor...

In 1993  Living Colour  released an album filled songs of alienation, social commentary and heavy themes that still resonate today. Stain was the first album with Doug Wimbish on bass, and the band fires on all cylinders with their unique brand of metal, sliding easily from funk to experimental to thrash and hard rock with ease. But two years later the band would take a five year break, and Stain...

We’re back with another “In The 90s” episode, this time tracking the chronology of rock legends  KISS  through the decade. After rising to fame in the 70s, the 80s were less kind to the band, who shed the makeup, band members and eventually albums sales through a turbulent time They entered the 90s on a positive note, with 1989′s Hot In The Shade scoring a hit with the power ballad “Forever,” but...

Rick Ruhl and  Every Mother’s Nightmare  are back with a new album, and he stops by to share their story. He takes his back to his formative years, his first concert (Alice Cooper!) and his earliest bands before forming  EMN , who ended up signed by the legendary Clive Davis to Arista records after just thirteen gigs together. We dig into the awkward early 90s when bands with ballads and hair were...

On the follow-up to their breakthrough album,  The Cardigans  1998 release Gran Turismo asks you to put on headphones and chill. Though known for their bouncy pop single Lovefool, words like moody and introspective better represent their overall sound. Taking cues from a wide range of musical styles and distilling them into a controlled and unique album that owes as much to 90s downtown electronic...

On the follow-up to their teenage debut,  Silverchair  fattened the sound but not the sales, we try to figure out what happened. When 1995′s Frogstomp exploded, the kids from Australia were pegged as Nirvana wannabes with plenty of growing to do. The still managed to sell millions of albums and score a bunch of hit singles. The sophomore release Freakshow from 1997 actually fared better with criti...

On her sophomore release Firecracker,  Lisa Loeb  mixes pop hooks and confessional ballads with mixed results. Known for the hit “Stay” from the Reality Bites soundtrack and the 1995 album Tails, her 1997 release under her own name has some made for radio pop singles as well as more intimate material. Sometimes the sparse approach works, adding flavor to the sound, and other times the musicians ba...

It’s Halloween, a perfect time thanks a requested review to revisit the the  Groovie Ghoulies  1997 album Re-Animation Festival. With a mixture of early rock ‘n roll riffs courtesy Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, mixed with Ramones energy and Monkees goofiness, all wrapped in a Misfits-style horror punk sound, the Ghoulies give us some good creeps on All Hallows Eve. The band hit their stride keeping...

Cornershop ’s 1995 sophomore album Woman’s Gotta Have It gives a hint of the hit they would release two years later. The album shifts between rhythm driven “Hindi Pop” and jarring, dissonant indie guitar rock. While both have their merits, the melodies flow smoother on the former leaving the latter wanting. This album may have been out of step with the UK Battle of Britpop taking place between Blu...

The second album from  Hot Water Music  gives us plenty to like, but much to scratch our heads at as well. Whether you call them punk, post-punk, post-hardcore or emo, HWM forge a unique path on 1997′s Forever and Counting, avoiding the rhythms and structures traditionally associated with punk rock. While we dug the diversity, the presentation left us wanting, as a dynamic-less mix and some questi...

We’re heading to the land of ten thousand lakes to uncover the Minneapolis St. Paul music scene of the 1990s. With names like The Replacements and Husker Du, the twin cities have been established as an 80s mecca for underground hardcore and punk rock, but the story of the city is much deeper and broader. In the 90s bands like Soul Asylum and Semisonic scored massive hits, while The Jayhawks, Low a...

With help from Jason Falkner of Jellyfish,  Brendan Benson  crafted a fine if overlong debut album in 1996′s One Mississippi. Some of us may have discovered Benson thanks to his team-up with Jack White in The Raconteurs, but he had a number of solo releases to his name by that point, and One Mississippi shows the promise of what was to come. Like so many 90s albums, the first half was satisfying w...

Into Another  bring the riffs, the big vocals and locked-in rhythm section on 1995′s Seemless. Even though we’re fans of New York City bands such as Quicksand and Handsome, Into Another somehow flew under our radar. However, thanks to Patreon patron Chris M. with his twelve-month anniversary pick, he enlightened us on the major label debut (and third overall) album by the band. We dug deep into th...

In the 1990s the term alternative country appeared, we’re talking the bands, the sound and influences. What is  alternative country  an alternative to? Country? Rock? We dig into the unique aspects that separate alternative country from its more mainstream counterparts and the sounds that help create it. We talk some of the biggest influences upon 90s alternative country, including Gram Parsons, N...

What happens when you remove  Scott Weiland  from  Stone Temple Pilots  - you get  Talk Show . Attempting to fill the hole left by Weiland’s drug problems in 1996, the DeLeo brothers and drummer Eric Kretz recruiter former  Ten Inch Men  frontman/guitarist Dave Coutts to take the lead on this self-titled release from 1997. The album failed commercially and band quickly dumped Coutts to welcome Wei...

The debut  Save Ferris  album It Means Everything is everything you know and love/hate about 90s ska-punk. The snappy snare, the upstroke guitar lines, the energetic horn stabs - all the hallmarks of the familiar 90s sound utilized by early No Doubt, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Reel Big Fish and others. Save Ferris don’t break the mold, but they do add a few extra layers, inserting a distorted gu...

From up north comes  The Tea Party , creating a stew of eastern scales, industrial rhythms and Zeppelin-esque dramatics. Their 1997 sophomore release Transmission is the quintessential headphones album. Though only a three piece, they pile on a wide range of non-traditional instrumentation to create a unique, swirling sound that goes big rock in the vein of The Cult or Led Zeppelin while grounding...