Alanis Morissette launched her rock career with Jagged Little Pill, one of the best selling debut albums of all time, so it’s no surprise that she’s had a difficult time topping that introduction. Subsequent albums have been released to ambivalence (and, increasingly, outright disinterest) from critics who are still more interested in learning who “You Oughta Know” was really about than hearing Morissette’s thoughts on spirituality. Morissette’s latest, however, returns the ever-burdened singer to the subject matter that made her a...

Even if he’d stopped recording after the 1970s, Peter Hammill would have been heralded as one of the most important figures in prog-rock for his work as the primary singer-songwriter in Van der Graaf Generator, the British ensemble whose ambitious, ever-shifting albums presaged most major trends in prog-rock, and later even hinted at early punk-rock. After Van der Graaf Generator’s 1978 break-up, though, Hammill went on to cement his reputation with literally dozens of solo albums, each with a different instrumental set-up—some were...

Pigeonholed by his ties to iconic soft-rockers Fleetwood Mac, even though he contributed some of the group’s more nuanced and most celebrated songs, Lindsey Buckingham finally scored the critical reappraisal he so obviously longed for with his 2006 album Under The Skin, a stripped-down singer-songwriter disc that contained some of his best songs in a decade. Buckingham has walked with an extra pep in his...

My Morning Jacket has evolved rapidly since the psychedelic Southern rock of their early albums, pushing themselves in more grandiose, experimental directions for 2005’s tight, masterful Z and 2008’s all-over-the-place Evil Urges, an album that divided critics but certainly didn’t slow their rise. In concert, the band is more of a traditional, Southern-flavored jam guitar band than their studio-crafted albums let on, playing sets that...

The Celebrated Workingman’s Mark Waldoch sings loudly and unconventionally. Backed by his chiming band, which channels The Flaming Lips' pomp and The Hold Steady's vigor, Waldoch huffs and puffs excitedly, crooning even his most pensive verses with cheerful bellows. Between his full-lunged enthusiasm and his band's...

Singer Jon Oliva cut his teeth in the long-running progressive heavy metal band Savatage, but that popular band was in many ways just a test run for his grand, prog-rock Christmas touring sensation, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which sells out many of the biggest venues in the world each holiday season. That’s not to say that Oliva has...

   Despite two decades and nine albums to his credit, Mikael Åkerfeldt, the compelling frontman of the Swedish dark-metal band Opeth, recently told Powerplay magazine that he still gets anxious playing live. "Why am I nervous?" he asked. "It's just metal."  Actually, it's not, and Opeth proved why during a jaw-dropping performance of melodic beauty and brutality Friday night in a packed room at The Rave. In fact, the quintet manages to transcend metal while still sounding quintessentially...

The Turner Hall Ballroom tonight at 7 p.m. welcomes a pair of emerging bands who are making a name for themselves on the Internet. Headlining is Breathe Carolina, a Denver two-piece electronic band with big, power-pop hooks. In concert, the band eschews the standard, pre-recorded bump-and-grind of other electro-pop bands...

Italian singer-songwriter Carmen Consoli continues her push to make a name for herself stateside with her seventh American tour and her first Milwaukee stop tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Miramar Theatre. Sophisticated and almost relentlessly baleful, her acoustic songs shimmy around posh bossa-nova rhythms...

Adult-contemporary star Celine Dion brings her latest tour to the Bradley Center tonight at 8 p.m. The tour has been billed as one of her most lavish yet, an over-the-top evening of greatest hits, guest musicians and costume changes, with each new wardrobe more sparkling than the last. Along with the hits—and a certain song from Titanic...