Though it will always claim a diehard following, prog-rock remains one of music’s most maligned genres, dismissed by rock purists who reflexively turn up their noses at any composition that smacks of overwork or indulgence

 There’s no more challenging dive than the one from a cult perch into the mainstream. Many artists take it only unwittingly, but a few

 Tarik Moody doesn’t have much regard for genre boundaries. As a DJ for 88.9 Radio Milwaukee, Moody spins a little bit of everything, and as a principal behind the concert series Unlooped

 Yo La Tengo have just returned from a tour of West Coast record stores, part of an aggressive first-week push behind their new album, Fade, and guitarist Ira Kaplan is adjusting to the full schedule. “I think in this modern record age, there’s more activity than ever focused on the initial week

The Knot, the second album from the Baltimore indie-rock duo Wye Oak, bowled me over on first listen last month, and subsequent weeks have only affirmed my initial impression. I still think it could be the group's breakthrough record, but it now seems that breakthrough might be a delayed one: Today, in an almost apologetic review, Pitchfork writer Mike Powell damned the record with a dismissive 5....

In advance of the band's return appearance at the Pabst Theater tomorrow night, I dug up this 2007 interview with singer Matt Berninger. Although I wish I could say it holds up, it already shows its age�who would expect The National to do "loud, aggressive" songs at this point?�but it does offer some perspective on the band's unusual, delayed success story and Berninger's almost Zen-like songwriti...

Now I'm not saying I dislike the Dirty Projectors' lauded new album Bitte Orca. But I will say that halfway through the album, the group's chirping, incessant backing singers hit a note so shrill that I literally ripped off my headphones on impulse. I've heard fire alarms with more grace. So why won't I just come out and say I dislike the new Dirty Projectors album when, well, I clearly do? ...

I'd dismissed Manners, the debut album for Boston's indie-electro fetishists Passion Pit, after a couple grating initial listens and reading some icy reviews from sources I trust that seemed to confirm my first read. I've been revisiting the record over the last couple weeks, though, swayed by friends who are utterly smitten with it, and sure enough, I've come around to it. I still can'...

Wye Oak introduced themselves promisingly with their 2008 debut If Children, a charming if occasionally overly timid disc plucked from the quaint apple orchard as another co-ed hush-pop duo from Baltimore, Beach House, but Wye Oak's upcoming album, The Knot, is grand improvement�a louder, more purposeful record that refashions Galaxie 500's starry-eyed haze, Among My Swan-era Mazzy Star's acid-was...

Spoon last came through Milwaukee as part of their breakthrough year in 2007, touring behind their album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga with a well-received show at Summerfest, then a return to the city that October for a long, heated performance at the Pabst Theater, where they appeared happy to be on the road again after spending the week preparing for their debut appearance on "Saturday Night Live." They slowe...