album
Modern Drummer is the world’s most widely read drum magazine, is dedicated entirely to the art of drumming and caters to the needs of amateur, semi-pro, and professional drummers.
Man Forever Pansophical Cataract
CD Pansophical Cataract is comprised of two eighteen-plus-minute tracks that are in fact reduced versions of thirty- and forty-minute live performance pieces. A bit more rock-ish than what generally passes for modern classical music, but way more esoteric than…
The Wedding Present Valentina
CD/ALBUM The Wedding Present, who formed in Leeds, England, in 1985, is one of British alternative rock’s longest-running bands. They’re also among its most consistently high-quality. Singer/guitarist David Gedge still writes about the intricacies of romantic love with great…
The Smashing Pumpkins Oceania
CD Replacing original Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin mustn’t have been easy for Mike Byrne, but leader Billy Corgan clearly made a good choice with the newbie. Similar to the way that Zak Starkey is in some ways the…
IZZ Crush of Night
CD It always seems unfair when progressive-rock haters toss out the word pretentious as a catchall way to denounce the genre. Fact is, prog only works when the listener is utterly convinced of the sincerity of the players’ devotion…
Utsi Zimring Zone 23
CD/ALBUM This moody and organic acoustic/electric jazz collection from drummer/composer Utsi Zimring features an all-star line-up of NYC jazz greats including guitarist Mike Stern, pianist David Kikoski, and saxophonist Bob Franceschini. Zimring dances playfully around the melodies with a…
Symphony X Iconoclast
CD/ALBUM The working man’s prog band? The thinking man’s metal band? However you want to label them, Symphony X occupy a pretty interesting corner of heavy music, and their new album, Iconoclast, is as good a place to discover their…
Eric Harland Voyager: Live By Night
CD/ALBUM Is this really Eric Harland’s first album as a leader? Recorded live in 2008 in Paris and featuring a stellar band including pianist Taylor Eigsti, the engaging post bop of Voyager: Live By Night is full of the drummer’s…
Jeff Coffin and Jeff Sipe Duet
CD Presented as a “single, stream-of-consciousness listening experience,” Duet finds Flecktones/Dave Matthews Band saxophonist Jeff Coffin and Aquarium Rescue Unit drummer Jeff Sipe engaging in a beautifully textured, free-form session using horns, drums, mallets, bells, gongs—anything and everything. Sipe’s…
Mastodon’s Brann Dailor on The Hunter: Change Is Good
by David Ciauro Perhaps the Mayans were right after all. The End of Days must be upon us when we live in a world that finds the Atlanta-based metal band Mastodon’s latest album, The Hunter, debuting on Billboard’s top…
Dave Douglas & So Percussion Bad Mango
CD As part of the broader Greenleaf Portable Series featuring trumpeter Dave Douglas leading groups with drummers Marcus Gilmore and Nasheet Waits, Vol. 3 highlights So Percussion, bringing Douglas’s horn together with various percussion instruments for a wild concoction…
Rival SonsPressure and Time
CD This album’s easy to love. As enjoyable as Jack White’s recent foray into funky, riff-tastic garage rock with the Dead Weather has been, Rival Sons seem to inhabit that world even more comfortably. Bathed in a hugely enjoyable…
Richard Christy: “Admire the Heroes??? Studio Footage
Richard Christy Performs “Admire the Heroes” from Cold Winds on Timeless Days, the New Album by Charred Walls of the Damned The December issue of Modern Drummer magazine contains an Update story on Richard Christy. In it, the drummer and leader…
Marc LaFrance of Bachman & Turner
Hello, Marc LaFrance here. I am the drummer/background singer for Bachman & Turner. That’s right, I am a singing drummer—I’ve been doing both for over forty years. You might recognize my name because I have performed on many albums over…
Steve "Froth" Frothingham: Not So Vintage Drummer
L.A. psychedelic revivalists Bigelf are so dedicated to accurately replicating the sound of ’70s European prog rock, they use vintage equipment exclusively. For drummer Steve “Froth” Frothingham, whose primary influence is Guy Evans of the British prog pioneers Van der…
