The new one by Beachwood Sparks is "Tarnished Gold" and it's on Sub Pop. It's laid back and well rested folk rock - it's been a decade since their last album - maybe they're too well rested. If these guys were any mellower they would achieve silence. The singing is just fine, but the songs? Not so much - it's all sound alike acoustic music - basically, it's harmonies without direction.

A bad day in the Shire or business as usual at Hogwarts? Imagine Dragons are neither. Rather, this rock band is the Next Big Thing out of Las Vegas, and on Wednesday night they probably won't be doing any Wayne Newton songs when they perform at Velvet Jones in Santa Barbara.

These Dragons have a bio filled with the right stuff from the right people and the right gigs at the right time -- pretty much the Yellow Brick Road to Rock Star 101, following in the footsteps of their Vegas homies Panic at the Disco and the Killers. Read more »

The new Shins album is definitely a keeper - it's "Port of Morrow" - why ask why - and it's on Columbia. James Mercer, once upon a time out of New Mexico but these days, near the top of the musical food chain in Portland, has hired all new Shins to carry out his delicate, intricate, baroque pop rock visions. The songs all sound pretty and some such as "Simple Song" will live in your head for daze. The lyrics seem to be important, but actually don't make a lot of sense, but Mercer could sing the phone book with that swell voice and make it all seem like something you can no longer live without.

Rock 'n' roll never starts on time, but this was really pushing it. One-time 805 local M. Ward -- now a part of that very happening Portland music scene -- was slated to do an interview with The Star to chat about the busy week he's got coming up, including gigs today and April 20 at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio and on Saturday at SOhO in Santa Barbara, the latter another of those ultra-groovy Club Mercy gigs.

The interview has been in the works casually for about a month, but negotiations grew more impatient and hectic this past week. After a few weeks, Ward let it be known that it would be cool to do a weekday phoner -- but that was out because of my day job. So onto Plan B -- an email interview. Even that took a whole week, his answers not arriving in my in-box until Tuesday night. By the looks of things, Ward spent a whole five minutes (if that) on his responses -- but then again, maybe I could've asked better questions. Read more »