Watching fans and artists enjoy and interact as they watched pre-recorded sets from 15 local groups performed at the venerable West Columbia rock dive New Brookland Tavern was an affirming experience during a turbulent year. 

Fat Rat da Czar didn’t have to include a pair of surprising, well-chosen samples from Netflix favorites at the top of his new release to prove…

Preach Jacobs is a busy man. Even during a pandemic, Jacobs has several different projects going on all at the same time.

This follows 2020, when Five Points was forced to pull the plug on its annual March event just 10 days before it was scheduled to take place as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.

I really wanted to hate “Smiling Politely,” the new album by Hillmouse, AKA Columbia singer-songwriter Tyler Gordon.

Columbia rapper 2Ru3’s new release “Lil Sumthin’” is hands-down the most accurately titled album of 2020.

Arrested Development isn’t just a ’90s band.

The White Mule is in no condition to hold a concert.

We keep up the tradition of ranking the best albums South Carolina mustered in 2020 for the same reason that we do it every year — to celebrate local music, and to get you all talking about and interacting with it.

Year-end lists celebrate great albums. But here’s the rub: They also leave other great albums out.

COVID-19 shook up the lives of the artists that made this year’s Best of South Carolina Music List, and the way they were able to promote their winning albums.

Famously Hot New Year is transforming its typical New Year’s Eve block party into a virtual event in response to COVID-19.

In 2016, veteran Palmetto State musicians Dave Britt and Bobby Sutton started Ashes Of Old Ways, a group that split the difference between ragged rock and mournful honky-tonk country right down the middle.

The duo’s relationship to the country music industrial complex has always been more convenient rhetorical stance than legitimate beef.

For many people, watching a musician perform is how they connect with them.

This weekend’s Dec. 12 concert from Americana stars Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, along with a Dec. 13 appearance from Fox News personality …

Many musicians, at multiple levels of the industry, are having trouble in this year of COVID-19. Be it acts with national or regional renown t…

Chaz Bear attended Ridge View High School, and became locally and regionally renowned for his involvement in the indie rock band The Heist & the Accomplice before coming to greater prominence with Toro Y Moi.

My Columbia Craft Famously Hop IPA was brought directly to my cove in a stapled brown paper bag, the height of coronavirus concert luxury.

In the wake of their 2018 EP “Ritual,” Glass Mansions did a lot of touring, looking for a new home base as they travelled the country.

In rock music, perfection is the enemy. Few things throw off a good rock song like too much polish. There should be some sloppiness, some ragged edges.

An effort to bring big-time acts and socially distanced audiences to the Columbia Speedway Entertainment Center will have to wait until next w…

Last year, Columbia singer/songwriter Ahomari released an EP called “Girl Kiss,” a spacey combination of synth-pop and soul that came with a w…

There’s no better evidence of Boo Hag’s wild-eyed determination than “Ballads” and March’s “Burial Ground.” Listening to them back to back, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were by different bands.

The First Couple of Charleston folk-rock, Shovels & Rope, kick off the first run of shows on Nov. 14, and the rest of the lineup doesn't disappoint.

The band’s more intense tracks offer a welcome catharsis from the steady, thrumming dread they cast in relief.

Columbia singer, songwriter and guitarist Elaine Townsend took a break between her last album and her new EP. A 20-year break.

On its debut album, the married Columbia duo comes across as exactly what it is — nice, personable, immensely talented, and overflowing with potential.

On their second LP, Columbia’s E.Z. Shakes expand what they can be by getting closer to who they were in the first place

In describing itself with genre tags, the Columbia quartet Bathe nods to several immediately apparent strains of heavy metal — doom, grindcore…

It’s fascinating how the elements of ‘80s music that once seemed so cheesy — space-age synths, overripe sax solos, robotic programmed drums — …

What is a dead swell — the place where a perfect wave goes to die? Surf City submerged in the Sargasso Sea? Whatever the answer, Dead Swells i…

Dan Cook has worn a lot of hats over the years, and many of them placed him near the center of the music scene in Columbia.

Record Store Day has become a necessary shot of life for indie shops.

Jay Matheson has been waiting to make Dick Circus for a couple of decades now.

Back in February, I wrote a review of Fat Rat da Czar’s ambitious, sprawling, and possibly career-defining double album Tribe. It was a unifor…

Three years after its self-titled debut, multi-instrumentalist Austin Larrimore’s sludgy math-rock outfit Ort returns, now as a duo with guita…

Over a long enough timeline, everyone changes. Our likes, our dislikes, our dreams, our desires, our political opinions, the ways in which we …

On the surface, everything about I Was Bored, the new seven-song release by Columbia singer and songwriter Ahomari, seems designed to lower ex…

Cooking is an art of chemistry and patience. Understanding not only how combinations of ingredients will interact, but also how the effects of…

In some ways, whether or not a college radio station has live, on-air DJs chattering between songs might not seem that important. Especially w…

As with many things these days, the organizers of Stick Tight Fest were unsure if they could make it happen this year.