This Week

The Band Perry: Pioneer

New release (Republic Nashville; tour dates)
Photo by Robby Klein

Sophomore slump? Not here. As soon as the banjo on the opening track, “Better Dig Two,” makes room for some choice electric-guitar power chords before the two instruments dance together, it’s clear that The Band Perry has lost none of its charm or chops.

Paramore: Paramore

New release (Fueled by Ramen; tour dates)

I’ll never forget my first encounter with Paramore. It wasn’t at a gig or on the radio. It came in the pages of a magazine: a backstage photo taken around the time of 2007’s Riot! And I have to be honest: My focus wasn’t on the band but on its singer, Hayley Williams. Underneath that flame of orange-red hair, with her head cocked elatedly to the side, she was laughing as if there was no tomorrow. Now that’s rock & roll, I thought, wondering if she (um, the band) sounded as full of youthful excitement as she looked.

The Flaming Lips: The Terror

New release (Warner Bros.; tour dates)
Photo by George Salisbury

Telepathic surgery. Ego tripping at the gates of hell. I’ve allowed the Flaming Lips to take me deep inside myself and pull me far afield. But I can’t submit entirely to The Terror.

Years ago, someone told me that 1,200 high school kids were given a survey. A question was posed to them: Have you ever been to a stand-alone record shop? The number of kids that answered “yes” was . . . zero.

Gangster Squad

By 1949, Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), a New York Jew, has gone West to follow his manifest destiny to take over Los Angeles and then the whole of the Western United States through buying politicians, judges, and cops with profits from his vice, gambling, and drug rackets.

Iggy and the Stooges: Ready to Die

New release (Fat Possum; tour dates)
Photo by David Raccuglia

Ready to Die is billed as the 40th-anniversary follow-up to 1973’s Raw Power because it’s the first album since then to be credited specifically to Iggy and the Stooges, with James Williamson returning on guitar.

Natalie Maines: Mother

New release (Columbia; tour dates with Dixie Chicks)
Photo by Danny Clinch  © Columbia

“Lots of albums by lead singers might just as well have been made by the band, but I think this is very different from anything the Dixie Chicks could make.” So says Natalie Maines about her debut solo album. It’s “a new direction,” her press release underscores. Most common translation I’ve seen to date: It’s “a rock album.”