The Tribune

Unending curiosity regarding the content of the evening’s set list was likely at the forefront of a Snow Patrol fan’s mind on their way to the band’s Sept. 12 Metropolis performance. In 2004, the Irish heartthrobs relased The Final Straw Stateside and it was among the 30 best sellers in the U.

A little over two years ago, the future of You Say Party! We Say Die! was bleak. It was week 14 of a 16-week European tour – an exhausting amount of time for even the most seasoned touring musicians. Fatigue had set in for the Vancouver band, communication had broken down, and everything came to a head when singer Becky Ninkovic attacked drummer Devon Clifford during an argument at a bar in Germany.

She & Him’s Volume 2 makes a slight departure from 2008’s Volume 1. Actress Zooey Deschanel and singer-songwriter M. Ward’s second album is full of Beach Boys-inspired harmonies and twangy California guitar, maintaining the duo’s penchant for a retro sound.

Montreal-based Plants and Animals’ newest release La La Land is a fun, upbeat record that showcases why the band has been gaining recognition in the indie music scene for a few years now. Their first full-length album, Parc Avenue, was nominated for two JUNO awards in 2009 and was short-listed for the Polaris Music Prize in 2008.

Mobile. Tales From the City. Local 514-ers Mobile have just released Tales From the City, their second full-length album. Formally known as Moonraker, Mobile has risen to critical success in the past couple of years with their first album, Tomorrow Starts Today, which helped the band win a Juno Award for New Group of the Year.

Where would Jimi Hendrix fit into today’s music scene? Seasoned but pushing into the mainstream like Eric Clapton? Playing Super Bowl halftime shows like Pete Townsend and The Who? The release of Valleys of Neptune, a posthumous follow up to 1968’s Electric Ladyland, may convince you that Hendrix was simply too much of a psychedelic, blues-thumping, break-through-the-boundaries-of-your-brain invention to ever escape the “27 Club.

Until now, if the name Aidan Knight sounded familiar, it’s likely because of his numerous backing contributions to bands in the Victoria/Vancouver music scene. But take a few listens to his debut Versicolour and it’s hard to imagine Knight backing up any musician other than himself.

I’m not one to judge a book by it’s cover, but I will decide what to read based on what the back cover says; a song called “Oprah, God Wants You To Have A Private Jet” was more than enough to entice me to listen to Scott Lanaway’s Mergers and Acquistions. The album is full of spacey electro-folk, one of those new, hard-to-classify sounds your iTunes gives up on and calls “alternative and punk.

Gorillaz’s highly anticipated third album Plastic Beach definitely sounds like a Gorillaz album, but it lacks the flare of their sophomore release, Demon Days. Plastic Beach feels like a concept album, but it’s difficult to tell what the concept is (but it’s certainly not a pinball wizard).

Jack White is a busy guy. Playing in three successful bands (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather), taking on small roles in feature films, and running a production company in Tennessee doesn’t seem to be enough. White claims he likes to make things difficult for himself, so within a single year he signed on for two documentary films; It Might Get Loud was released at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008, and Emmett Malloy’s The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights – filmed during the band’s tour across Canada in 2007 – premiered there last year.