Blog: Trust Me on This

A love letter to his origins, Provincial is the personal, inevitable debut solo LP from John K. Samson, better known as the frontman, singer, and songwriter of the Weakerthans. "Personal" because the songs has touches of vulnerability, even awkwardness, that demonstrate the intimacy of John's lyrics; "inevitable" because that same deeply personal tenor is the [...]

TMOT's top 5 albums of 2011, in no particular order 1. Bon Iver, Bon Iver Forget Emma, forget Kanye, forget the Grammys, forget the cabin in the woods. Jubilation is not apparent in Bon Iver, not at first. But how else could "Towers" be described? It's a gorgeous love song, and despite the occasionally unintelligible [...]

The British always seem to do ultra-cool rock better than anyone else. New Cassettes, a sharp quintet from Northampton, England, doesn't sound radically dissimilar from every other Brit rock band from the last five years: they've got that sleek sound, excitable guitars and catchy beats down perfectly. Their songs have a modern edge that reminds [...]

This year, for the first time in this brief history, I missed the birthday of TRUST ME ON THIS. Where are your priorities? you ask, and your query is a legitimate one. When I first began writing this music blog in 2007, I was afire with a thirst for new music. I had no conception [...]

It was a spur-of-the-moment impulse that brought me to the Rock Shop on a Monday night to see Fionn Regan. At first it seemed like there were hardly more people than musical instruments in the room, but gradually a decent crowd turned up to hear his set. I didn't have my camera, but more or [...]

We Are Scientists headlined the CMJ 2011 day showcase at Pianos on Saturday. I'm getting spoiled; it was their third free NYC show since June (I won't even tell you how many times I've seen them and their rotating cast of drummers). A cramped room with no backstage; a packed crowd already boozing at five [...]

Fionn Regan returned to CMJ 2011 and the Mercury Lounge on Tuesday night, four years after I first saw him there during CMJ 2007. After seeing Fionn on Monday night at the Rock Shop in Brooklyn, where he admitted he was less than fully-rested, I was curious to see how two consecutive sets would compare. [...]

Full photoset here. White Rabbits headlined Fashion's Night Out at Rockefeller Center on Thursday night. Featuring half a dozen new songs, the show afforded a promising look at the forthcoming third album from this percussion-heavy, Brooklyn-based band. As curious gawkers on the Rockefeller Center plaza watched from above, a small crowd danced to "The Plot" [...]

On Thursday night, despite a downpour while the line stretched past North 13th Street in Greenpoint, the crowd at the House of Vans was out of control, but they seemed to be having a good time. When a significant proportion of the audience dispersed after Against Me!'s set, the kids left standing were the Tokyo [...]

Toward the end of Ra Ra Riot's 75-minute set at Celebrate Brooklyn, an exhuberant Wes Miles hopped off the stage and went from stage right to stage left, touching the hands of thrilled fans, before vaulting over a handrail and doing a lap back to where he started. Although the turnout wasn't as staggering as [...]

View the full photo set here. On a cobblestone street at the South Street Seaport, in broad daylight with no booze in sight, preceded by a corporate-sponsored breakdancing/hula-hooping act: this was no typical We Are Scientists concert. Yet with kids carrying homemade signs, with no stage (and no stage-diving - a pity), and with the [...]

Sondre Lerche played an acoustic set at Soundfix Records on Saturday. Although some equipment problems caused a brief delay, Sondre gamely hopped atop an amp for a pre-set song ("the opposite of an encore"). The store was packed, and the crowd edged in within a foot of two of him while Soundfix's air conditioning fought [...]

This year the Village Voice moved their annual summer bash from Coney Island to the South Street Seaport. Although the Siren Festival tended to have acts performing on two different stages, the first incarnation of 4Knots was a smaller, more modest affair (despite whatever might be implied by the existence of a VIP viewing area [...]

At a We Are Scientists show, it sometimes seems like the banter is half the fun. Keith and Chris have really perfected their routine, which distracts from the re-tuning of guitars between songs, and provides insightful, possibly (probably) fictional insight into their songs. Looking out over a sea of fans in a soggy field in [...]

View the full photo set here. From the lowest of lows, to the highest of highs: Noah & the Whale played a triumphant show at Irving Plaza, their third show in New York since the release of their third album, Last Night on Earth, in March. The band's most recent album is as jubilant as [...]

Tokyo Police Club keyboardist/multi-instrumental ist Graham Wright is delivering on his long-awaited solo debut album, Shirts vs. Skins, next month. Three brand-new songs are available for streaming on Graham's Wrighteous Facebook page, although right now it looks neglected - each has been played fewer than a thousand times. (Speaking for myself, having to Facebook "like" something [...]

View the full photoset here. Different suits, same setlist. For their second sold-out concert at the Bowery Ballroom, Noah & the Whale delivered the same show with only a few differences. From its start, the night seemed as though it might be different: in a truly bizarre moment, the band remained offstage while a track [...]

I would gladly spend my last night on earth with Noah & the Whale. This smartly dressed British quintet, with not a wrinkle to be seen in their suits, played the first of two sold-out shows at the Bowery Ballroom tonight. The new album, Last Night on Earth, received perhaps the most powerful treatment, but [...]

At the second of two sold-out shows at Radio City Music Hall, Bright Eyes delivered a rich set of new songs drawn from The People's Key as well as older songs spanning the band's career. Wild Flag and Superchunk, two venerable nineties heavyweights, anchored the show with energetic opening sets, but it was Bright Eyes [...]

Every Bright Eyes album adheres to a formula, and the formula is this: a few great songs, sometimes more than a few; a few experimental songs (often with a mishmash of non-musical audio samples), but usually not too many; and usually a couple of songs that - apart from being fantastic, catchy and earnest - [...]