Category: indie rock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Dan Matthews (vocals, guitar), Neil Hayes (guitar, vocals), Gary Moses (bass, vocals) and Cory King (drums, vocals), the Asbury Park, NJ-based indie rock quartet The Black Clouds have developed a reputation for a DIY approach to recording and producing their material and for touring — and for a continuing collaboration with the legendary Jack Endino, who has mixed and mastered each of the band’s first two albums. Building on a growing national profile, the band has played at several of the country’s largest festivals including Bamboozle and SXSW, and have opened for the likes of the legendary Mudhoney; in fact, I caught the New Jersey-based band open for Mudhoney when the legendary grunge rock forefathers stopped at The Bell House last year.

The members of the New Jersey-based quartet will be releasing their third full-length effort After All on January 6 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. Additionally, Mudhoney’s Mark Arm contributes his imitable vocals to a couple of songs, furthering yet another collaboration with a Seattle grunge rock legend. After All‘s first single “Photograph” is a 1990s-inspired, explosive barn-burner of a song, complete with aggressive power chords, growled vocals and an anthemic hook reminiscent of Foo Fighters, Nirvana and others — all while being rather radio-friendly.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Surreal and Psychedelic Visuals for The Moonlandingz’ Manchester-Inspired Single “Black Hanz”

Featuring The Eccentronic Research Council‘s Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer and Fat White Family‘s Lias Saoudi and Saul Adamczweski, The Moonlandingz are both a side project and a semi-fictional guitar pop act, whose latest single “Black Hanz,” is as the band refers to in press notes “a song for our times, born out of abuse; abuse in the workplace, abuse in the street, abuse by the sniveling toe rags we call a government, abuse for daring to dream and to be different,” and “a celebration of the Outsider, the socially inept . . ” Sonically speaking their sound manages to mesh a facsimile of the Manchester sound — twinkling synths, guitars fed through delay and effects pedals and a driving motorik groove — paired with a sneering and ironic punk sentiment, and a mischievous and menacing spoken word section towards the song’s bridge.

The recently released video features a Ziggy Startdust-era David Bowie rocker who gets picked on, ridiculed and threatened everywhere he goes for both his ridiculous, alien-like appearance and for having the bravery to not fit in. The video goes into much stranger territory when the rocker’s Fairy Godmother swoops down to save him from a bunch of thugs — and then promptly places him where he belongs, fronting a rock band. Simply put it’s fittingly and goofily low-budget while emphasizing the song’s central theme of celebrating those who are proudly different and are proverbial square pegs – but with a subtly 60s psychedelia.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Giorgio Poti (vocals, guitars), Alessandro Marrosu (bass), Salvador Garza (keys) and Aurelien Bernard (drums), each member of the London-based psych rock quartet Cairobi can claim a multinational heritage, which manages to influence their songwriting approach and sound. And adding to that multicultural influence, the band’s self-produced, self-titled album was written in Berlin, where the band’s lead singer relocated, and was recorded in a series of sessions between Berlin, London, Rome and New York. Interestingly, part of the album’s writing sessions draws from Poti suffering frequent and violently incapacitating migraines. As Poti explains in press notes ““I could either stay still, in silence, eyes shut, or take the medication and hope it worked so I could move on with my day. Even when the medicine worked, it would make me extremely sleepy, so some of the music and lyrics on this record were written in a state of drowsiness. That part wasn’t particularly fun, but maybe it helped me get rid of some filters. Luckily, the headaches stopped after about a year.”

The band started to receive attention across the blogosphere with the jagged and jangling Brit Pop and dream pop-leaning “Lupo,” a single which revealed that the band employed an unusual songwriting technique while still hewing to a lengthy psych pop/psych rock tradition. The band’s latest single “Saint” is a dense, noisy and jangling track that sounds as though it draws a bit from Middle Eastern and Saharan African music with shuffling drumming, chopped up distorted vocals, electronic bleeps and bloops and other effects to create a trippy kaleidoscopic sound. And while still drawing from old school psych rock, the single manages to sound as though it’s a modern, maximalist take on a familiar and beloved sound, complete with an anthemic, arena rock-friendly hook.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Dali-esque, Dire Straits “Money For Nothing” Inspired Visuals for Jordan Burchel’s “Coffee Breath”

Vowel Sounds’ latest single “Coffee Breath” will further cement the Gainesville, FL-based multi-instrumentalist and producer’s burgeoning reputation for carefully crated rock with deeply introspective lyrics that sonically draws from psych rock and dream pop — although in this case, “Coffee Breath” much like the work of Drakkar Nowhere sounds as though it also draws from 70s AM rock as Burchel’s crooning is paired with shuffling drumming and subtly bluesy psych rock guitar chords. But just underneath the surface is a subtly mischievous sense of irony.

Animated by Tristan Whitehall at Squiggle Dot, the recently released video for “Coffee Breath” playfully nods at Dire Straits’ legendary and envelope pushing “Money for Nothing” but with an insouciance to the proceedings as the video follows an anthropomorphic coffee cup as it journeys through a Dali-esque desert to a surrealist living room and back to the desert — and during the journey, the coffee cup encounters a snake seductively wrapping itself around an anthropomorphic apple, an hourglass with a skull from it as the coffee cup holds another coffee cup and later drinks from it. It’s surreal but with a gloriously mischievous glee.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Although very little is currently known about them, the London-based indie rock act Le Clientele, their latest single “Strats and Precisions” as the band describes is a “Dire Straits, Ariel Pink inspired workout” and was recorded in Softhouse Studios using a Studer A827 tape recorder, which helps to give the proceedings a jangling, old-timey feel but with a subtly contemporary take.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

With the release of their debut single “I Knew You,” the Newcastle, UK-based quartet Seeing Hands, comprised of Kev Curran (vocals, guitar), Nick Hodgson (lead guitar), Jon Varty (bass) and Liam Guillan (drums) have received airplay from the likes of BBC Radio 6 and XFM, as well as attention across the blogosphere for a shimmering guitar pop/dream pop sound that sounds as though it owed a debt to the 4AD Records sound and to contemporary acts like DIIV and others, complete with a gorgeous yet wistful sense of melody as you’ll hear on their latest single “It’s True.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Sweetly Wistful Sounds and Visuals of Up-and-Coming Indie Act Family Friends

Splitting their time between London, UK and Melbourne, Australia and comprised of sibling duo Rebecca and Tom Fitzsimons, indie pop act Family Friends have received attention across the UK and Australia for a breezy, buoyant and hazy guitar pop paired with infectious hooks and a summery feel. And the duo’s latest single “Look the Other Way” will further cement the duo’s burgeoning reputation for buoyant and hazy guitar pop with an underlying sweet, wistfulness while gently nodding at early 80s New Wave.

Directed by Will Farrell and featuring animation from Charlie Pelling, the video as the sibling duo explains is a “tiny colourful story, featuring the lovesick offspring of national treasure Mr. Blobby” that “tries to get inside the heart of what it is to make a friend in the faceless urban jungle of today.” And as a result, the video further emphasizes the sweetness of the song while giving it a subtle swoon.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The Veldt Return with Sensual and Moody Visuals for “In A Quiet Room”

Now, earlier this year the newly reformed The Veldt released the first batch of new material in almost 20 years with the release of The Shocking Fuzz of Your Electric Fur: The Drake Equation Mixtape an effort which revealed a subtle meshing of the original The Veldt sound with that of Apollo Heights — and the result is a sound that pairs towering and shimmering guitar chords, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and Danny Chavis’ soulful yet ethereal crooning as you would have heard on the swooning “Sanctified” and their sultry yet moody latest single “In A Quiet Room.” And as those two singles and the tour supporting their EP revealed, the band’s sound manages to make a vital and important connection between The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Cocteau Twins, The Verve, Fishbone, Marvin Gaye, Prince and TV on the Radio among others.

Directed by Toshi Kaneiwa, the recently released music video possesses a painterly quality as the gorgeously shot black and white video features a nude woman brooding and posing in a room. And with each shot, you can almost picture an unseen photographer or painter creating a moody portrait.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Best known as a founding member and frontman of the Fresh & Onlys, and the creative mastermind behind Magic Trick, Tim Cohen has quietly developed a reputation for being a critically applauded yet somewhat unheralded songwriter. Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site for a bit you may know that 2016 has been extremely busy for Cohen as he spent time touring both with Magic Trick and Fresh and Onlys, splitting time between touring and a domestic life with his partner and newborn daughter and working on Magic Trick’s fourth album Other Man’s Blues, which was released earlier this year. And you may recall that I wrote about Other Man’s Blues‘ first single “First Thought,” a shuffling and twangy country blues that nods at psych rock and gospel while sounding as though it could have been released somewhere between 1972-1975. Lyrically, the song dealt with self-doubt, uncertainty and the acceptance of both — but with a wry, mischievous wit.

Cohen also managed to find the time to write his solo debut Luck Man which was written and recorded in his attic and El Studio after a recent relocation to San Francisco, a city he once called home several years before. Much like his previously released material with the Fresh and Onlys , Cohen’s material under his own name is deeply influenced by personal experience as a delivery driver, his own daily travels and Van Morrison‘s Veedon Fleece; however, unlike other songwriters Cohen tends to eschew focusing on the prototypical overarching topics such as love, hope and despair to focus on quietly complex and fully fleshed characters with detailed backstories, failed dreams, dashed hopes and perseverance through it all. As Cohen mentions in press notes “I like to think I’m leaving bits of wisdom behind, but I don’t possess the wisdom for longer than it takes to make a song. I inherit it momentarily, write it down, attach a melody that fits the words in rhythm, and then record it.”

“John Hughes” the first single off Luck Man is a warm and jangling bit of guitar pop that reveals a narrator, who possess a deeply questioning and uncertainty anxiety about himself, his talents and even his place in the world — and Cohen does so with a novelist’s attention to psychological detail, as he captures his narrator’s innermost thoughts with an unflinching yet empathetic honesty.

Look for the album on January 20, 2016 through Sinderlyn Records.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site throughout all or a portion of its history, you’d likely be somewhat familiar with New York music scene vet Kelsey Warren as Warren has spent time as a sideman, frontman and studio hired gun in a number of projects including Denise Barbarita and the Morning Papers, pILLOw tHeORY and a number of others. Warren’s solo recording project Blak Emoji received attention earlier this year with the release of Sapiosexual,”a change of sonic direction for Warren, as the power chord-based pyrotechnics have been pushed to the background for slinky synths and a dance floor friendly sound — while gently nodding at Nine Inch Nails. Warren’s second and latest single continues on a similar vein as “Sapiosexual” as the New York-based music scene veteran’s seductive cooing is paired with slinky synths, a sinuous bass and guitar lines, four-on-the-floor drumming and an infectious hook in a slickly produced, dance-floor friendly song. But underneath the sensual and slick production is a some really smart songwriting that simultaneously focuses on a romantic/sexual relationship, and a decadent and alcohol-fueled night out on the town, hitting up dive bars and trying to get into pulsating clubs — all while nodding at funky contemporaries including Boulevards, Tuxedo and others.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of “Okie Dokie Howdy Doody,” Flower Girl, a New York-based quintet led by Nick Morris and a series of live shows with some well-regarded nationally-known acts including Juan Wauters, Peach Kelli Pop and Jimmy Whispers among others, quickly received a growing local reputation for an infectiously optimistic, jangling guitar pop and hook-laden sound that sounds as though it could have been released in 1966 as you’ll hear on “You Can’t Always Get What You Are,” the latest single off the quintet’s recently released full-length debut Tuck In Your Tie Dye.

 

indie rock by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Introducing the Wire-Inspired Post-Punk Sound of Bloomington, Indiana’s Permit

Permit is a Bloomington, IN-based indie rock/punk rock duo and with the release of their debut 7 inch, the duo’s sound was indebted to power pop, classic rock and early punk; however, with the release of their debut EP Vol. 1 the duo’s sound has increasingly taken on a frenetic post-punk vibe that makes their material sound as though it were indebted to Pink Flag-era Wire but as though it were a 33 rpm album played 45 rpm speed, as you’ll hear on Vol. 1’s latest single “Track #6.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past year, you may have come across a post or two featuring the Los Angeles-based indie rock trio Psychic Love. Fronted by multimedia artist and vocalist Laura Peters, along with Max Harrison (guitar) and Liam McCormick (bass), the trio have described their sound in press notes as “dream grunge” and “as if Nancy Sinatra had a love child with Frank Black.” Earlier this year, I wrote about “Ultralight,” the first single off the recently released full-length debut The Hive Mind, a propulsive and jangling guitar pop ballad that nodded at Phil Spector‘s Wall of Sound and  La Sera‘s Music For Listening To Music To — with an anthemic hook. The album’s latest single “Dye Pack” continues along a similar vein as  jangling guitar chords played through reverb and delay pedal and propulsive drumming are paired with Peters’ sultry vocals and an anthemic hook in a swaggering, mid-tempo song that is as Peters explains in press notes is about “how even the smallest relationships leave a mark on you, and how the bigger ones can be a huge, confusing, mess.”

As a result, the song’s narrator expresses the complex array of emotions that relationships can inspire in us:  frustration, dismay, confusion, desire, suspicion, the sensation that you’re being played but aren’t completely sure, and so on. And every relationship you ever have reverberates through every succeeding relationship — and frequently in often unforeseen and unpredictable ways.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of “Elisa Lam” off their recently released, self-titled full-length effort, the members of Melbourne, Australia-based indie rock trio Pure Moods quickly established a burgeoning reputation for crafting shimmering, moody and jangling guitar pop that sounded heavily indebted to 4AD Records and shoegaze. And with the latest single “Blurb,” the band will further cement the reputation for jangling, guitar pop; but in this case, thanks to the use of a delicate melody around the song’s hook, their latest single sounds as though it subtly nods at early R.E.M  — in particular, I think of “Talk About The Passion” off Eponymous and The Smiths.