Category: indie rock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Emily Robb (guitar, vocals), Leslie Burnette (organ, vocals), Emily K. Eichelberger (bass, vocals) and Jenna Robb (drums, vocals), the Philadelphia, PA-based quartet Louie Louie specializes in a sound that meshes 60s rock, 60s Motown-era soul, pop and R&B with post-punk — while clearly nodding at Phil Spector‘s Wall of Sound-like production. And much like the material and period that influences their sound, Louie Louie’s material possesses a lovelorn vulnerability and ache while revealing a maturity and self-assuredness beyond their years, as you’ll hear on their latest single “After Me” — but just under the surface is a swooning sincerity that sets the Philadelphia-based quartet apart from many of their contemporaries.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Surreal and Brooding Visuals for Up-and-Coming Icelandic Post-Punk Act Fufanu’s Latest Single “Sports”

Currently comprised of founding members Katkus Einarsson (vocals, guitar), whose father Einar, was a member of The Sugarcubes and Guðlaugur “Gulli” Einarsson (guitar, programming) (no relation,by the way) along with Erling Bang (drums), the members of Reykjavik, Iceland-based indie rock/post-punk trio Fufanu can trace its origins to when its founding members met at school — and as the story goes, Katkus had glanced at Gulli’s iTunes and noticed that they had listened to a lot of the same techno and electronic music. In the same week that the duo met, they went into the studio and began writing and recording electronic music under the name Captain Fufanu. And within a month of their meeting they began playing shows in and around Reykjavik. “It was happy electronica,” Katkus Einarsson recalls in press notes. “We were aiming for something deeper, but didn’t have the capabilities. The reason we never released anything as Captain Fufanu was that as soon as we had something ready, we aimed for something new, more challenging.”

In a strange twist of fate, that album that Katkus Einarsson and Gulli Einarsson wrote and recorded has long been presumed lost as the studio they recorded their original Captain Fufanu album was burgled and this was paired with the duo wanting to reinvent their sound. Interestingly, at the time Katkus Einarsson was in London working on Damon Albarn’s Everyday Robots and touring with Bobby Womack when he began writing lyrics — and simultaneously Gulli Einarsson had started to recreate their sound in a way that Katkus describes as conveying what he had been thinking. They then added guitars and drums and began pairing that with Katkus’ brooding vocals — and then renamed themselves Fufanu.

Their first live set with their new sound and aesthetic was Iceland Airwaves and they quickly became one of the most talked about bands of the entire festival. The band’s founding members then went into the studio to record their brooding full-length debut A Few More Days To Go, which further expanded a growing national and international profile as they toured with renowned acts such as The Vaccines and played at JaJaJa Festival. The band’s forthcoming Nick Zimmer-produced sophomore full-length Sports is slated for a February 3, 2017 release through renowned British label One Little Indian Records and the album which has the band recruiting Erling “Elli” Bang (drums), also finds the band expanding upon their sound and its thematic direction. While retaining sound elements of the synth-based sound that first caught attention, the band’s sound also possesses a motorik groove reminiscent of krautrock acts like Can and Neu! as well as Joy Division and Security-era Peter Gabriel as you’ll hear on the moodily atmospheric and propulsive first single off Sports, album title track “Sports.”

Reportedly, “Sports” as well as the rest of the material on Sports thematically deals with the drudgery and mundanity of daily life, while subtly hinting at other things in an enigmatic fashion. As Katkus Einarsson explains their lead single “could be about getting really obsessed with a chocolate brownie, or it could be about a boy or girl and being obsessed with getting them on your side.”

The recently released music video was directed by the members of the band and the video is a rather ironic take on the song as it features a bunch of high-school aged kids getting off a bus at a local track where they stretch and do the Olympic-styled track and field sports — but as the camera follows some of these kids, there’s creeping sense of something not quite right, as the kids look at the camera with distrust, loathing, fear and confusion. It’s a striking and surreal video that leaves a lingering feeling of unease, much like the song that it accompanies.

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Canadian Indie Rock Quartet’s Sultry Post-Modern Take on the Art of Seduction

Since the release of their full-length debut, the members of July Talk have developed a reputation for explosive live shows in which they have grown their national and international profile as the band has toured across Canada, the US, Europe and Australia with festival stops at Toronto’s WayHome Music and Arts Festival, Atlanta’s Shaky Knees Music Festival, New Orleans’ Voodoo Music and Arts Experience, Montreal’s Osheaga Festival, the UK’s Isle of Wight Festival and Austin’s Austin City Limits Music Festival. And building upon the band’s growing profile, their sophomore effort Touch was released earlier this year with the album’s first single “Push + Pull” holding the number 1 spot on the Canadian Alternative Radio charts for more than 8 weeks.

The band is currently on tour to support Touch and it includes a December 15 stop at the Bowery Ballroom; but in the meantime, the band’s latest single “Picturing Love” will further the quintet’s reputation for their unique sound in which Dreimanis’ gruff, whiskey and cigarette-tinged growl and Fay’s coquettish and ethereal vocals are paired with bombastic, anthemic hooks, twinkling keys, angular yet propulsive power chord-based guitar and bass chords and thundering, arena rock-like drumming in what is arguably one of the sultriest songs I’ve heard this year. Lyrically, the song focuses on the art and act of seduction in the modern age.

The recently released music video was filmed and shot in a gorgeously cinematic black and white and much like the song is a post-modern take on love in the modern age, as it features the central couple viewing each other through several layers of screens — and it suggest that the video’s central couple, the band’s vocalists are almost always at a sense of remove from one another, yet desperately wanting each other’s touch. But on another sense, it also evokes the game and roles people play when it comes to lust and love.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially known as the Seattle, WA-based Bigfoot Wallace and His Wicked Sons, the newly renamed The Kingdom Boogie Band can trace their origins to the formation and breakup of a renowned Pacific Northwest percussion heavy band Kithkin, a band which released four critically well-received albums. Anyway, the members of the newly renamed band are currently working on a full-length album under their new name, an album which will likely comprised of material that the band has dubbed country fun(k) on their Facebook fan page  — although from “Caul,” the band manages to effortlessly mesh psych rock, boogie woogie, glam rock and 70s AM radio rock in a way that feels mischievously anachronistic, while actively not being a carbon copy of the sound that influenced it.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Caveman Performs “Never Going Back” on CBS This Morning’s Saturday Sessions

With the release of their debut album Coco Beware and their sophomore self-titled album, New York-based quintet Caveman — comprised of Matthew Iwanusa (vocals, guitar), James Carbonetti (guitar), Jeff Berrall (bass), Sam Hopkins (keys) and multi-instrumentalist Matthew Prescott-Clark — have developed a profile locally and nationally for a moody and gorgeous guitar and synth-based sound that at times owed a sonic debt to Peter Gabriel, U2 and others. And as a result the quintet has toured with the world, playing shows with the likes of The War On Drugs, Weezer and Jeff Tweedy, and they’ve received praise not just from this site, where they’ve become mainstays but from a number of major media outlets.

The band’s highly-anticipated third full-length effort Otero War was released earlier this year, and the album’s first single “Never Going Back” is arguably the most upbeat and anthemic song the band has released to date, while sonically sounding as though it drew from Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark” — but with Carbonetti’s gorgeous guitar work, Iwanusa’s plaintive vocals and soaring synths. And much like Springsteen’s work, “Never Going Back” deals with themes that Springsteen would still tackle today — maneuvering the complications of love, desperately seeking an escape of the humdrum and blandness of small town life, and the recognition that at a certain point, your decisions and their impact on your life loom larger any our life.

The members of the renowned New York-based act made their nationally televised debut on CBS This Morning’s Saturday Session where they performed “Never Going Back.” Check it out as I think it’ll give you a good sense of the band’s live sound.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially comprised of founding members Marcus Admund (vocals) and Albin Wesley (bass), along with Nikki Nyberg (guitar) and Erik Fritz (drums), the Stockholm, Sweden-based quartet Honeymilk can trace their origins to the formation and eventual breakup of Urmas Planet, a band that featured several members of Honeymilk. And with the release of the Linus Larsson-produced single “It Might Be,” the band quickly received both praise across the blogosphere and radio airplay on several radio stations including Amazing Radio and Oxford College Radio. However, after “It Might Be,” the members of Honeymilk decided to go the DIY route, recording their critically applauded full-length debut effort Lean on the Sun.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few years, you may recall that I’ve written about the band on a couple of occasions including their Brit pop and psych rock-channeling single “A Scene in Between.” Sometime after that single and its subsequent recorded efforts, the band went through a massive lineup change in which the band went from a quartet to a duo featuring the band’s co-founder Marcus Admund (vocals) and Nikki Nyberg (guitar). And with such a massive lineup change, the band went through a radical change of sonic direction as you would hear on their breezy, Vampire Weekend-like synth-based single “Time Will Kill You,” a single that received quite a bit of buzz across the blogosphere and over 140,000 streams on Spotify.

Currently, Admund and Nyberg are working on the much-anticipated follow-up to Lean on the Sun — but in the meantime, the duo’s latest single “The Nothing New” is as the band says “could be about finding yourself in an age and situation where the demands that hunt you are increasing; the same that it takes more alcohol to get drunk, it takes great and greater everyday explosions for the static line that life has graduated turned into to be moved. It could also be a pretentious and unclear salute to both Samuel Beckett’s book Murphy or Spacemen 3. Or it could be a very good pop song that means nothing.” Sonically, the song is a breezy and jangling bit of pop that meshes elements of 60s psych pop with  Brit Pop (thanks to angular guitars and undulating synths) with an infectious and anthemic hook and ironic lyrics while being both radio and arena rock-friendly.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you had stumbled upon this site last week, you may have come across a post on the Asbury Park, NJ-based indie rock quartet The Black Clouds. Comprised of Dan Matthews (vocals, guitar), Neil Hayes (guitar, vocals), Gary Moses (bass, vocals) and Cory King (drums, vocals), the New Jersey-based quartet have developed a reputation for a DIY approach to recording and producing their albums, for a busy touring schedule and a  continuing collaboration with renowned producer, engineer and musician  Jack Endino, who has worked with an incredibly impressive list of artists and who has mixed and mastered The Black Clouds’ first two albums. And building upon a growing national profile, the band has not only played at everal of the country’s largest festivals including Bamboozle and SXSW, they’ve also toured with  the likes of Mudhoney among others.

The Ashbury Park, NJ-based quartet’s third full-length effort After All is slated for a January 6 release and the album, which was recorded at Studio 606 will further continue the band’s collaboration with Jack Endino, who only only recorded, mixed and mastered the album but also produced the album and contributed some guitar on aa few songs. The album’s first single “Photograph” was a  90s grunge rock, barn-burner of song with growled vocals, aggressive power chords an anthemic hook reminiscent of Foo Fighters, Nirvana and of 120 Minutes-era MTV.

Interestingly, After All‘s second and latest single “Vice” continues the band’s ongoing collaboration with Mudhoney’s imitable frontman Mark Arm while furthering the band’s burgeoning reputation for crafting 90s grunge inspired rock —  all power chords, howled vocals, enormous hooks and thundering drumming but in this case paired with Mark Arm howling lyrics about debaucherous behavior and in a similar fashion to Jim Carroll Band‘s “People Who Died,” “Vice” manages to offer a sobering warning — some of that behavior will fuck you up and then kill you.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Featuring primary and founding members Ryan Needham and Liza Violet, along with a rotating cast of friends, collaborators and others, the Leeds, UK-based indie rock band Menace Beach received both national and international attention with the release of their full-length debut Ratworld and its follow-up Super Transporterreum EP — both of which were praised for an off-kilter, buzzing and fucked up take on 90s rock. Now, if you had been frequenting this site last year, you may recall that I wrote about “Ghoul Power,” the first single off Super Transporterreum EP, a song that tales a story about a pocket-sized, alien thou, who soaks up your darkness and anxieties –but after hanging out with the members of Menace Beach, who take him to way too many parties and shows, the alien winds up as a pale, sweaty  mess. Sonically, the song seemed to draw from Pixies, The Breeders and L7 while evoking a lurching fucked up, nauseating haze.

Written while in Ibiza and recorded in Sheffield, UK with Russ Orton, who’s worked with M.I.A., Arctic Monkeys and The Fall, the band’s forthcoming sophomore effort Lemon Memory was partially written as a way to lift a citrus-based curse that the band’s primary duo believe was placed on their house and as a way for them to forge their own sound and identity. The album’s latest single “Give Blood” begins with a couple of false starts before noisily chugging along in earnest with layers of scuzzy power chords fed through effects pedals and tons of feedback, propulsive and thundering drumming and an anthemic hook in which Needham and Violet sing about death — all while sounding as though the song were inspired by Blur and psych rock.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Playfully Childlike and Psychedelic Visuals for Winter’s “Dreaming”

As a newly formed quartet, the members of the band went into the studio to write and record their full-length debut Supreme Blue Dream, which Lolipop Records released last year. With material written and sung in both English and Brazilian Portuguese, the album thematically was designed to connect the listener to their inner child while writing shimmering and ethereal pop that interestingly enough sounds as though it could have been released by 4AD Records. The band is currently working on their forthcoming sophomore effort Ethereality — but interestingly enough, the album’s latest single “Dreaming” was originally written back in 2013 and was presumed lost when the band’s laptop was stolen while on tour. However, through a bit of coincidence and fate, the band found a version of the song on a backup hard drive — and interestingly enough, the single will further cement the band’s growing reputation for craft shimmering and ethereal shoegaze-leaning pop that manages to evoke the sensation of being awoken from a pleasant reverie.

Developed by Samara Winter and directed by Kevin Kearney, the 90s psych rock/alt rock-inspired video depicts Winter on the beach, connecting with her inner child as she plays on the beach, daydreams and bathes in a tub while being shot in neon bright filters and colors schemes.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Turkish JOVM Mainstays The Away Days Return With Their Most Politically Charged Single to Date

Now, over the past couple of years, the Turkish indie rock quartet have released a series of singles that have that have seen international attention across the blogosphere, including this site where the band has added their name to a growing list of mainstay artists. Up until recently, it had been about a year since we had last heard from the renowned Istanbul-based quartet; but as it turns out, the band had been busy working on the material, which will comprise their highly-anticipated full-length debut effort. The album’s first two singles “Less Is More” and “World Horizon” were atmospheric yet lush tracks in which plaintive vocals were paired with ethereal and shimmering synths — while drawing from the band members’ lives as musicians in a society in which their efforts are viewed suspicious and seditious.

“Places to Go,” the third and latest single off the band’s forthcoming full-length debut is a lush and plaintive song featuring layers of shimmering guitar, a tight motorik-like groove and a soaring, anthemic hook — and in some way it makes the song sound as though it were inspired by classic shoegaze and contemporary pop and indie rock; however, the song manages to possess a deeply held tension as lyrically, the band draws from their lives and the lives of Turkish young people as the song touches upon the sense of frustration, boredom, oppression and conformity, lack of opportunity and their overall restlessness.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Team Picture is a Leeds, UK-based indie rock quintet, who have started to receive attention from the likes of major blogs such as DIY Mag and The Line of Best Fit. And adding to a growing national profile, the band has opened for Kagoule and The Orielles and others.  The band’s third and latest single “Potpourri Headache” will further cement the Leeds-based quintet’s reputation for crafting lush and shimmering, shoegaze-leaning indie rock in which the band pairs ethereal vocals with propulsive drumming, shimmering guitar chords played through effects pedals, and equally ethereal synthesizers. In some way, the band’s sound manages to channel both the classic 4AD Records sound and A Storm in Heaven-era The Verve.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Currently comprised of founding members Alan Sparhawk (guitar, vocals) and Mimi Parker (drums, vocals) along with Steve Garrington (bass), the Duluth, MN-based indie rock trio Low have a long-held reputation for slow-burning and heartfelt material comprised of minimalist arrangements, which showcase Sparhawk and Parker’s harmonizing. Just as the band was about to embark on a UK and Ireland tour in which they’ll be playing their critically applauded Christmas EP, the members of the trio released a Christmas season original “Some Hearts (at Christmas Time).” And  the latest single will further cement the band’s reputation for crafting slow-burning, minimalist and thoughtful indie rock in which a strummed, plaintive guitar motif and swirling electronics are paired with Parker’s ethereal vocals harmonizing with Sparhawk’s gently processed vocals in a song that looks at the close of the year with a hopeful look ahead.  Certainly, while this year has thrown many of us quite a few punches, there are a couple of things that we cannot forget — that through fate or plain dumb luck we’re still here to love, to dream, to fight yet another day; that sometimes hope may be the only thing that gets us out of bed; and that in difficult times, we may only have each other to depend on.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

While currently comprised of founder and primary member Jamie Stewart, Angela Seo and Shayna Dunkelman, indie rock trio Xiu Xiu have throughout the course of their history developed a reputation for restless experimentation and lately for a period of extraordinary diverse prolificacy — earlier this year, they released their critically applauded album Plays the Music of Twin Peaks, collaborated with renowned indie pop artist Mitski on a song that will appear on a forthcoming John Cameron Mitchell film, collaborated with Merzbow on an album, composed music for several art installations by renowned artist Danh Vo, wrote the score for an experimental reworking of Mozart’s The Magic Flute — and then they found time to write and record the material that comprises their forthcoming 11th full-length effort FORGET, which Polyvinyl Records will release on February 24, 2017.

Co-produced by John Congleton, who has worked with Blondie and Sigur Ros; Deerhoof‘s Greg Saunier and Xiu Xiu’s Angela Seo, the album features guest appearances by minimalist composer Charlemagne Palestine, Los Angeles Banjee Ball commentator Enyce Smith, Swans‘ Kristof Hahn and renowned drag artist Vaginal Davis. And as the band’s Jamie Stewart explains of both of the album’s title and its overarching theme, “To forget uncontrollably embraces the duality of human frailty. It is a rebirth in blanked out renewal but it also drowns and mutilates our attempt to hold on to what is dear.” FORGET is both the palliative fade out of a traumatic past but also the trampling pain of a beautiful one’s decay.”

“Wondering,” FORGET’s first single is a propulsive  dance floor-friendly single in which the band pairs layers of scuzzy, angular guitar chords with undulating synths, stuttering and skittering beats, brief bursts of twinkling keys and Stewart’s plaintive crooning with a swooning and anthemic hook — and while the equally shimmering and murky single sonically nods at Stevie Nicks‘ “Stand Back” and others, the song possesses and underlying tension between the known and unknown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tour Dates

Mar. 16th – Los Angeles, CA – Union

Mar. 17th – Escondido, CA – A Ship in The Woods

Mar. 19th – San Francisco, CA – The Chapel

Mar. 21st – Seattle, WA – Kremwork

Mar. 22nd – Portland, OR – Holocene

Mar 23rd – 26th – Knoxville, TN – Big Ears Festival

Mar. 30th – Detroit, MI – El Club

Mar. 31st – Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle

Apr. 1st – Jacksonville, FL – The Sleeping Giant Film Festival

Apr. 6th – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Bazaar

Apr. 7th – Philadelphia, PA – Boot & Saddle

Apr. 8th – Harrisburg, PA – Cathedral Room at Der Maennerchor

Apr. 9th – Baltimore, MD – The Wind-Up Space

Apr. 11th – Jersey City, NJ – Monty Hall

Apr.12th – New Haven, CT – Bar

Apr. 13th – Providence, RI – Colombus Theatre

Apr. 14th – Portsmouth, NH – 3SArtspace

Apr. 15th – Boston, MA – Cambridge Elks Lodge / Hardcore Stadium

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Cooler is a Buffalo, NY-based indie rock quintet, comprised of Alley Yates (guitar, vocals), Nathan McDorman (guitar, vocals), Nick Sessanna (drums, vocals) and Adam Cwynar (bass) whose sound and aesthetic draws from 90s grunge and early 00s emo and as a result their sound has been compared favorably to the likes of Weezer, Saves the Day and Pity Sex — although as you’ll hear on “Metal Moths,” the latest single off their recently released Phantom Phuzz EP, their sound reminds me quite a bit of Bleeding Rainbow and Silversun Pickups as the members of the Buffalo-based quintet specialize in pairing layers of fuzzy power chords with anthemic hooks, a special attention on harmonized vocals singing incredibly earnest lyrics. Listening to the track brought back memories of making mixtapes