Music
Hanni El Khatib @ Urban Lounge 04.13
Khatib has been met with almost immediate success in his newfound full-time music career and I’m not going to argue why. The guy knows how to write songs and he and his band mates can perform them even better. … read more
Perfume Genius with Parenthetical Girls @ KIlby Court 04.14
Mike Hadreas doesn’t do drugs, or at least not anymore. This is what the front man of Perfume Genius connoted as he told me the story about how a destitute man carrying a baby randomly solicited him for drugs a few blocks away upon his arrival. He looks as if he wants to laugh and grimace simultaneously at this, but opts to smoke the cigarette clenched in his right paw instead. This is his first time playing in Utah. … read more
Regal Beast, Midnight Vitals, PTO, The Message @ GoGo37 04.14
Last weekend a few of my friends and I all stuffed ourselves into a car and made a short but sweet weekend trip to sunny St. George, Utah. Aside from “the hell of it,” the reason for our journey entailed a performance by Regal Beast at GoGo 37 and an interview for SLUG’s podcast, Soundwaves From the Underground, with the venue’s owner, Ryan Groskreutz. … read more
Sleigh Bells @ The Depot 04.12
Around 9:45 p.m. the room went dark and the hype for the headlining act began. A red glow illuminated the 12 massive Marshalls at the back of the stage. Moments later, not one, but two guitar players emerged on the dark stage before being followed by the tiny, raven-haired Alexis Krauss who was rocking a pair of white Keds, cut off denim shorts and a super tough leather motorcycle jacket, which was discarded by the side of the stage after only one song. … read more
Napalm Flesh: The Safety Fire interview
You feel that heat out there, darkhearts? This week, we sit down with guitarist Dez Nagle of prog-metal group The Safety Fire, who stopped in town on April 6 with their bros from Protest the Hero. Plus, we have your usual cavalcade of metal reviews from Aura Noir, Deathhammer, Heidevolk, Hellvetron, Primal Rock Rebellion and your weekly calendar of doom! … read more
Alex and Dylan vs. Comeback Kid @ Club Sound 04.07
SLUG sent two of our best hardcore and punk music writers to the show for a bit of nostalgia, and they returned with broken glasses, scraped noses and the following reviews. … read more
Explosions In the Sky, Zammuto @ In The Venue 04.07
In just their fourth trip to Salt Lake and my third time seeing them live, Explosions In The Sky has blasted through the ceiling that most of their post-rock counterparts live under, and are making their way into the mainstream. … read more
Music Reviews
New releases from Black Breath, Busdriver, Craig Finn, Damien Jurado, Dirty Three, Graf Orlock, Lee Fields, Mark Stewart, Miike Snow, Poor Moon, Spectral Tombs and many more are reviewed this month. … read more
Napalm Flesh: Cannibal Corpse Interview
This week is brought to you by the letter C and, as always, the number 666. We’ve got an interview with Cannibal Corpse drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz. We also have a slew of reviews from Caliban, Children of God, Eddie Brock, Exumer and The Love Below, as well as your weekly concert lowdown—lots happening this week. It’s a free for all smorgasbord! … read more
Mike Doughty: Book of Drugs Tour @ State Room 04.02
Mike Doughty was a mainstay of the pop rock scene in the ‘90s through his band Soul Coughing, but he doesn’t want to talk about that … but he kind of will on his latest tour as he plays his music and reads from his new book. … read more
More Than Just A Party: 128 Beats Per Minute
For photographer Shane McCauley, 128 Beats Per Minute is a book based on what he describes as his three-year vacation—a time where he toured across the world with DJ and music producer Diplo, and his only responsibility was doing what he loved: taking photos. “I wanted to make this book about dance culture. I didn’t just want it to be a book about Diplo; I wanted it be about this music culture and this music movement,” he says. … read more
Demigods: Alas, Behemoth is Upon Me
Calling it his “most precious child,” Behemoth’s guitarist and vocalist Nergal doesn’t feel like reducing his music to a simple catchphrase. “I just grab my guitar, and pour all my emotions into new riffs and new songs, and the last thing I care about is whether it’s in the ‘blackened death metal’ box,” he says. “Behemoth is Behemoth.” Though recent years have posed a slew of trials for the band—especially Nergal’s leukemia diagnosis in 2010— he emphasizes that Behemoth is a “tight, solid unit again.” … read more