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On the new double-disc compilation Defilements, long-running Japanese band Coffins solder together a patchwork of death and doom metal from five out-of-print releases that trace their development throughout the 2010s. Coffins spike the collection with covers of iconic American groups such as Death and Buzzoven, faithfully executing each homage, and their original tracks simply swing. Metal can swing as surely as jazz and funk can, and without that crucial element of their sound, Coffins might have ended up just another plodding rock act pummeling worn-out musical tropes....

Last Tuesday, when Roosevelt Myles was released from prison after 28 years, he held a celebratory gathering at home with close family. His fiancee, Tonya Crowder, cooked fried chicken and french fries for everyone. But as the gathering went on, she became concerned that Myles was talking to everyone but not eating. Did he not like her cooking? Incarcerated for the length of their relationship, he’d never had a chance to try it....

I tried to tally up the total number of releases by noise wizard Masami Akita, better known as Merzbow, and polymorphous metal trio Boris before I started writing about their new joint album, but it proved to be a fool’s errand. These Japanese artists are among the most prolific musicians in modern history, and their combined catalogs include hundreds of titles. The brand-new 2R0I2P0 (a play on “RIP 2020,” a sentiment I think we can all get behind), is their eighth collaborative release since 2002....

Lordy. As if last year’s Power Trip record, Nightmare Logic (Southern Lord), wasn’t enough of a super boon from the Texas-born purveyors of pummeling thrash metal, this January we were blessed with Mammoth Grinder’s Cosmic Crypt (Relapse)—the Austin band’s first full-length in five years. Fronted by Power Trip drummer Chris Ulsh, Mammoth Grinder lay down a more subterrestrial blend of death and thrash than their metal brethren, which Ulsh complements with a baleful growl that compares to the sound of a concrete saw being run through a drum of gelatinized street sludge....

Russ Tutterow Sad news from Chicago Dramatists: its longtime artistic director Russ Tutterow died today, after a battle with cancer. A beloved director and stalwart of the Chicago theater scene, Tutterow was a widely recognized nurturer of playwrights and champion of new work. Tutterow served as Artistic Director at Chicago Dramatists for 30 years, establishing it as an acclaimed hub for the development and production of new work. He worked with hundreds of playwrights, including Rebecca Gilman, Tina Fey, Sarah Ruhl, Keith Huff, Lydia R....

Shamir rose to the spotlight with the release of his 2014 song “On the Regular,” but though the dancy, cleanly produced music made the singer-songwriter what he calls an “accidental pop star,” it pigeonholed him into a stylistic box that proved detrimental to his creativity. With the popularity of that single and his 2015 debut album, Ratchet (XL), Shamir found himself facing a question that plagues many rising artists after their first brushes with success: How can you change up your sound when doing so goes against the expectations of your label and audience as well as mainstream trends?...

We take for granted certain inevitabilities in life: the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, the world keeps on turning, and Stevie Nicks, clad in black platform boots and a billowy black dress, twirls along with it. The 68-year-old, flaxen-haired icon spun into the United Center Saturday night on her 24 Karat Gold Tour. Variously layered with song-specific shawls and capes (gold fringe for “Gold Dust Woman,” crepe-like silk for “Bella Donna”), she assured a similarly dressed crowd—lots of middle-aged women draped in shawls and beads to channel the Fleetwood Mac front woman—that amid life’s unpredictability, her bewitching brand remains unchanged....

Tradition keeps us cozy and warm around the holidays—and a routine that only happens once a year can’t feel too tedious. Maybe your thing is to happily choke down extra-boozy eggnog with a brick of fruitcake, or perhaps you gather around the TV to watch Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney sass each other in White Christmas. Both totally decent options. Me, I like to repeatedly listen to and eventually write a short post about the B side of a little-known 1995 seven-inch by great long-gone Boston oi-punk band the Showcase Showdown: “Merry Christmas, I Fucked Your Snowman....

So, two Irish actors walk into a bar. As does the entire audience. That’s the setup for Roddy Doyle’s Two Pints, imported from Dublin’s Abbey Theatre to Navy Pier. In the pub at Chicago Shakespeare, the audience members are flies on the wall (or rather, crammed around tiny tables surrounding the bar) as a pair of never-named blokes (Liam Carney and Philip Judge) banter over Guinness and the occasional whiskey....

One of the last things Governor Pat Quinn did before he left office was to sign off on an amendment that created a new state eavesdropping law. The new law? Not so much, since it arrived with some surprising baggage. State representative Elaine Nekritz, who sponsored the bill in the house, says that’s no accident. We made a decision “not to specifically state that citizens can record cops,” Nekritz says. “I thought if we tried to describe every instance in which you either were or were not committing eavesdropping, we would run into more trouble than we’ve created by having this more general standard....

Q: I’m a 33-year-old woman from Melbourne, Australia, dating a 24-year-old man. We’ve been dating for about eight months; it is exclusive and official. He’s kind and sweet, caring and giving, and his penis is divine. The thing is, he confessed to me recently that he doesn’t really “feel.” The way he explained it is, the only emotions he feels are fear and anxiousness that he’ll disappoint the people he cares about....

Follow-ups seldom meet expectations. I’m not the fan type, but I was so awestruck by Shozo Sato’s 1983 Kabuki Macbeth that I made a keepsake of a little piece of iridescent fabric that had fallen off somebody’s costume and landed in the aisle. I still have it. Sato went on to create kabuki versions of lots of other western classics, but none of them could hold me the way the first did....

Los Lobos have spent their nearly half-century career staying one step ahead of anyone’s expectations. Formed in 1973, the group spent their early days playing Top 40 hits and ranchera on the East LA party circuit, but by the end of the decade they’d retooled their sound for the local punk scene. In 1987, they recorded some Ritchie Valens covers for the soundtrack of La Bamba, the 1987 biopic of the Chicano rock pioneer—and hit number one on Billboard with their spin on the title track....

On Play Till You Win (Cassandra Complex), New York singer-songwriter Cassandra Jenkins recorded a song called “Tennessee Waltz.” It’s an original, rather than the country classic by Pee Wee King made famous by Patti Page, but the older tune ingeniously turns up in her song—as she echoes its sentiment of lost love, its iconic theme haunts her solitude. That postmodern trick is emblematic of her music, which deftly collides sleepy honky-tonk balladry with ambient chill....

Anastasia Chatzka anastasiachatzka.com That Anastasia Chatzka hasn’t experienced burnout is a wonder. The 31-year-old has financed her own business by working multiple jobs, designed her own fashion line, managed two boutiques (located in Ukrainian Village and Hyde Park), handled on-site alterations, presented seasonal fashion shows, and now plans to open pop-up shops in LA and NYC, all while keeping up a exceptional level of personable customer service. “I work from 10 AM to 10 PM just about seven days a week,” she says....

The first black superhero in mainstream American comics, Marvel’s Black Panther came with an African pedigree: in real life he’s the ancestral king of a small, impoverished sub-Saharan nation that conceals a secret empire, the whole operation empowered by an asteroid from outer space. That premise provides most of the fun in this big-screen adaptation, particularly in the form of the Dora Milaje, the king’s security team, who are badass women with shaved heads, neck rings, and flaming-red uniforms....

Black people are rarely portrayed in video games as anything other than stereotypes or ciphers. The few African-American characters who inhabit virtual worlds—whether Grand Theft Auto or Street Fighter—are typically gangsters, athletes, or sassy comic-relief types like Augustus “Cole Train” Cole, the thinly drawn professional sports star turned soldier from the Gears of War series—he’s primarily defined by his imposing physicality and profane one-liners. More recently people of color in video games seem like props or extras, their personalities so stripped that their inclusion appears to be simply for the sake of diversity....

Earlier this year Bob Dylan released his third consecutive collection of prerock American pop standards, Triplicate (Columbia). With 30 songs spread across three CDs, it rates as the most substantial volume yet. The album not only demonstrates that Dylan wasn’t kidding around when he started essaying tunes sung by Frank Sinatra (among countless others) a few years ago—it further reveals both his ardor for and understanding of the material. While his voice is more tattered than ever, his phrasing seems to sharpen with each passing year; there’s no missing the stinging futility in his delivery of the final line of “Stormy Weather,” or the less-than-certain optimism he injects into the post-hangover vibe of “The Best Is Yet to Come....

Drummer Bill Rieflin lived in Seattle, but he made an indelible mark on Chicago industrial music as a founder of Pigface and longtime member of Ministry and Revolting Cocks. (He’d go on to play with many other notable bands, including King Crimson, Swans, and R.E.M.) Rieflin died in March after a long battle with cancer, and on September 30—which would’ve been his 60th birthday—his friend and collaborator Chris Connelly released a tribute single, “Prayer,” with harpist and certified music practitioner Jessica Gallo....

My daughter Molly wiped away her own tears as she entered her grade school classroom last Wednesday morning. Molly was as prepared as she could be. Already that morning the head of Near North Montessori had sent the faculty a teaching tolerance article meant to help teachers like Molly process the election with their students. What her kids needed to know, Molly tells me, was “that they were safe, and that their feelings were valid, regardless of what they were....