It's a holiday weekend and relaxing has been in full swing, with a trip upstate to quiet NY towns on the Hudson. Many of the towns had little hints of nostalgia peppered throughout their streets. Likewise, the tunes flowing from my iPod/ Pandora stations seemed to track back into my memory and drag out some songs associated with specific periods of my past. One such track - still getting plenty of [...]
From the ever-fertile grounds of Omaha, Nebraska - farming pun semi-sorta-intended - busy songsmiths Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice have finally dropped their new collaborative effort this week. Lead track Scissor Runner doesn't contain too many surprises... a dusty melodic number, with that slight country air to the guitars and pleasantly worked vocal harmonies trading off with one another... but hints at an enjoyable album, in the vein of She & Him 's latest outing. [...]
Over in Blighty, Leeds is brewing up some rather fetching bands. This isn't anything that new, but any chance to show some love to the North of my country is grasped firmly with both hands and given an over exuberant shake. The latest group of chancers to emerge from deepest Yorkshire is Dinosaur Pile Up , who with brazen hooks and their noisy yet melodic delivery recall Foo Fighters in their early days. You know, before they kept making the same record every couple of years. [...]
This is new and stems largely from my Blighty matey jc posting his monthly track listening us for all to see. To spin it back to artist level, here's who Last.fm tells me I've played most in the last month (top 5), as well as my thoughts on the results... 5. Black Tusk - 41 [...]
Though many of the plaudits directed at the outstanding legacy of Dinosaur Jr. are heaped on the iconic J. Mascis , his band mate and Bassmeister General - yes, that's an official military position - Lou Barlow deserves plenty of credit as well. In addition to that stirling contribution to 80's alternative rock, Mr Barlow went on to continue shaping music at the forefront of his next band Sebadoh during the 90's. [...]
Sometimes the right type of music streaming into one's home can transform the harsh reality of the world outside. So it was for me today, as the fleeting, mellow sounds of Solomon's Hollow drifted from the speakers, forming images of a warm, relaxing middle American day spent on the deck, in stark contrast to the foulness of the New York thunder storm lashing at my window panes. OFFICIAL SITE / MYSPACE [...]
Good time rock and roll returned to my inbox this week, with the announcement that this very borough's rock duo The Gay Blades are due to drop their sophomore bomb in a little over a month's time. Entitled SAVAGES , the record will hopefully be appropriately feral upon its release into the wild on October 10th. [...]
At the recent Corrosion of Conformity 3-piece reunion , I had the pleasant surprise of catching support act Black Tusk from Savannah, Georgia. With raging, fast paced songs and playing tighter than an Italian waiter's trousers, these guys almost knocked the veterans off their expected perch of night highlight. MYSPACE / LABEL SITE / FACEBOOK Their recent [...]
Here's a rather kick bottom trio of videos from UK magazine rocksound's TV portion. Featuring ex- Kyuss singer John Garcia and some supporting musicians, the charismatic voice of 90's desert rock takes the low slung groove of several classics and brings out their bare bones for a stripped down acoustic take. Having been challenged to examine what heavy music could be by the Palm Desert quartet - who also featured one Josh Homme before he found his voice - it's intriguing to hear the reworked versions of songs that [...]
After touting the mooted new album from Long Island's heroes of ___-core (not just hardcore, not really metalcore, but furious to the core) Glassjaw for several years, I finally gave up this year. What better time, then, for Palumbo & crew to lament my loss of faith by returning to the fray with new material ? Granted, new single All Good Junkies Go To Heaven is a vinyl-only release and no mention is yet made of any more [...]
The Futureheads have been a staple of the British rock scene for several years now, dashing a little more punk into the safer waters of indie rock music on each album. Returning with third album The Chaos , they kick off with just the same urgency inspired by that genre. Counting down '5-4-3-2-1....let's go!' , the title track rides in on roller coaster guitars enthusiastically stabbing away at the rhythm section. After such a high energy opening, it's heartening that the familiar [...]
Hailing from England, I have no native reference points or equivalents to the great American West. Dustbowl cowboy towns and frontier outposts spring up much less naturally on small, rain swept islands, making the closest comparison, at best, the farming locales of our West country. And if you can make a link between our beloved Wurzels and cowboys then you're a better thinker than I. Perhaps, then, this absence explains the allure of some with Westerns and the dusty alt-country that so befits them. [...]
As I type this, The New Pornographers are serenading my living room from a sunny Chicago stage...ain't technology wonderful? Yes, it's still very much festival season and the the ever present streaming content is off in full force from Lollapalooza, the legendary fest that used to tour North America but now resides in Chi-town's Grant Park. AOL is the provider this time from their Lifestream , with the [...]
One of our Ten For 10 bands way back at the turn of the year, raw Southern rockers Dead Confederate are on their way back to action this month with a new tour and album in the offing. Less overtly raucous - and more in keeping with the sweet title of their next effort - lead track Giving It All Away holds onto the loose bombast of their sound whilst putting more [...]
On holidays this week, so apologies for the scarcity of posts. It's worth taking a second to note the swanky new video from our New York buds in Harper Blynn , however, which is taking the MTVu charts by storm. Harper Blynn | MTV Music Another catchy, melodic number and the title track from their splendid debut album, Loneliest Generation , these pages have thrown more or less [...]
As a city of over 8 million people swelters in fiendishly hot summer days, is it so wrong for one to wish, albeit momentarily, for freezing and tranquil tundra regions? Possibly. Though I excuse myself, in this case, as it affords the opportunity to introduce a Canadian duo called Freedom Or Death . Newly formed but relative veterans of other musical endeavours up there, these chaps seem to be pursuing particularly organic sounds in this guise, both in sonic and visual terms. Their [...]
H-T-A has always found favour in the hard-working endeavours of bands willing to shoot a few tunes to the fans for free. In that particular kingdom, Beat Radio and its main man Brian Sendrowitz are surely royalty, with several full albums and a singles series available for nowt on the group website . If you're anything like me you'll be digging these tunes and, from time to time, feel a twinge in the old gut that we should really contribute [...]
"It is my ambition to say in ten sentences; what others say in a whole book. " - Friedrich Nietzsche So it's been a while since #MusicMondays last surfaced here, what with the World Cup posts and summer freebie notifications, but I feel a penchant to unearth its still twitching corpse and ram a few thousand volts through it, nonetheless. To [...]
With sporadic listening from the charismatic Britpop of Blur , through the more downbeat shoegaze of Wye Oak , and on to the aggressive raging of the new Deftones material, I've struggled to plug into some upbeat summer jams to accompany the oppressive heat here in the last month or so. Last year Phoenix filled that role very effectively early on. This year? A deficit. [...]
Having fallen well and truly for the music of Wye Oak during their Shearwater support slot this past Spring, repeated listens of last year's The Knot and their impending Siren Festival appearance today require a check in with the band. The Maryland band released the My [...]
Heavier ~ Than ~ Air
Avicii – Two Million
Video: M83 – “Reunion”
Check Out: Los Campesinos! – “Tiptoe Through the True Bits”
