When Dairy Queen introduced the Blizzard in 1985, it was a big step forward in ice cream shop innovation. Before, you had hand-dipped cones and soft serve, sundaes and splits. If your shop knew what it was doing, you might be able to swing a chocolate- or sprinkle-covered cone, and there was always the milkshake.…

Loyalties to fast food French fries run deep. But for all the love they garner, few fast food chains have made attempts to innovate. There’s Wendy’s, which in 2010 switched to a fry made from skin-on Russet potatoes and added sea salt. But that’s about it. Burger King’s chicken fries isn’t even a fry. It seems as if…

There’s a specter hanging over the entirety of POST-, Jeff Rosenstock’s fourth solo album, that goes unnamed throughout. Even if Rosenstock never comes out and says it directly, the manner in which he wrote the songs offers insight about this nameless being. Just after the 2016 presidential election, the 35-year-old…

In a year as full of outstanding music as 2017, best-of voting can be a difficult task, and the wide variety of nominees across this year’s ballots reflects just how many great albums there were to choose from. After giving our Best Albums Of 2017 a read, dig into the individual lists our writers submitted of their…

There was too much to listen to in 2017—not just albums, of which there were once again thousands, a barrage of releases from major-label veterans and SoundCloud up-and-comers alike, all vying for your attention. There was just too much of everything: a persistent, buzzing storm of push notifications and free-floating…

Julien Baker is unfailingly polite. After the release of her 2015 debut album Sprained Ankle, several profiles made mention of her manners, along with the fact that she addresses interviewers with “ma’am” or “sir .” And when I meet her at her Chicago hotel to discuss her new album Turn Out The Lights, while I don’t…

Destroyer comes back strange, Bully channels ’90s fuzz, Jessie Ware evokes Whitney and Mariah, and doom duo Bell Witch turns in a moving eulogy to its late drummer. These plus Lindstrøm, Margo Price, and Makthaverskan in this week’s notable releases.

The entirety of Brand New’s career feels like a coup. In 2001, it was impossible to predict that the band known for writing buzzy pop-punk songs and feuding with Taking Back Sunday (which Brand New’s Jesse Lacey once played bass for) would become a serious concern. But as the years unfolded and Brand New moved away…

No two Pile albums are alike, and that’s what makes hitting play on a new one so exciting. Those first few notes open a door to a new world, one that could only be created by frontman Rick Maguire. With Pile, Maguire is fearless, willing to take country and bluegrass riffs and twist them around noisy post-hardcore and…

Pile is the kind of band that inspires people to do crazy things, like start a record label or write a concept record about it. At least those are two of the more outlandish examples we have so far.

Last year a book was released chronicling the history of one of Chicago’s best rock clubs, The Empty Bottle. Throughout its existence, The Empty Bottle has been the host to many of music’s biggest names, and everyone from Arcade Fire to The White Stripes have played on that stage. 2017 marks the venue’s 25th…

Twin Cisterns is the solo moniker of Chris Tenerowicz, one of many players in the ever-shifting Self Defense Family. On March 31, Bad Paintings Records will release Cloudspiller, Tenerowicz’s four-song EP that follows his previous cassette-only release. Below, The A.V. Club is premiering the whole thing, which sees…

Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn is a deeply empathetic songwriter. That’s not always obvious, since his characters tend to be working through (self-imposed) streaks of bad luck or turbulent emotional spirals. However, even his protagonists with shifting moral compasses tend to be likable, mainly because Finn is adept…

Two-piece rock bands are often viewed as a curiosity, due in large part to their inherent limitations. The exclusion of a guitar or bass means that, by and large, there’s something being omitted. But increasingly, that’s proving to be an outdated construct, as bands like Nashville’s Gnarwhal are continually pushing…

Even when South By Southwest was solely music-focused, there was no way to catch everything of import, and as it’s grown its film and tech festivals, coverage has only gotten harder. We sent a few A.V. Club staffers this year to cover music, film, and tech, so you can dive in and catch a week’s work of experiences…

Channels debuted during some of the bleakest days of the Bush administration, not long after frontman J. Robbins closed the door on his old band, Burning Airlines. When the Maryland trio—featuring bassist Janet Morgan (Robbins’ wife) and drummer Darren Zentek of Kerosene 454—released the Open EP in 2004, it reflected…

Explaining Spoon’s rise to fame is easy if you break down its songwriting. On first listen—or the 10th, really—its material sounds simplistic because it’s exactly that. Learning Spoon songs isn’t difficult, but replicating Spoon songs is hard. The subtleties and delivery, like Britt Daniel’s hoarse scratch on the tail…