Narrowing down the wealth of pop and rock albums from 2012 into a set of 10 favorites is an onerous chore that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. It is a fate worse than death; a grueling salvo of nepotism

Strictly speaking, the Mayan calendar doesn’t end at all — not on Friday, not ever. December 21, 2012 is simply the end of a 5125-year cycle. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, we can address the real problem: WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE ANYWAY.

When you have three American musicians — two from Greenville, SC — interpreting Russian folk music, you might expect it to get a little wild and full of pastiche.

A few weeks ago former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted, who has been fairly quiet since his departure from Voivod, suddenly popped up with a new website and some teasers to new music coming.