By NYO Staff 12:00am

The Beta Band: Xanax Arcade

The Beta Band, a scruffy Scottish foursome who seem to shuttle between their London digs and a hut in the far north of Scotland, have gotten a lot of mileage out of being inscrutable. The irony is that they maintain precious little ironic distance at all. On their second full-length release, Hot Shots II (Astralwerks), Read More

By D. Strauss 3/29/99 12:00am

Pining for the Old Northwest: Sleater-Kinney, Built to Spill

A trustworthy rule of thumb: Critics should never write critically about other critics. Not only does this make a certain career sense, but one falls into the Pauline Kael-esque trap of assigning straw-man motivations to one’s nemeses in order to score points with larger issues that may or may not apply to the work being Read More