Over the summer, I had written quite a bit about Nashville, TN-based sibling duo JEFF The Brotherhood and the first three singles off their latest effort, Zone, an experimental rock album that is the third and final part of a spiritual trilogy of albums that includes 2009’s Heavy Days and 2011’s critically applauded We Are The Champions. The most recent single I wrote about “Roachin” featured Bully‘s Alicia Bognano on vocals in a scorching, power-chord heavy dirge that sounds deeply indebted to 90s alt rock — in particular, the Melvins — as the song structurally consists of alternating quiet and loud sections, and an anthemic hook that you can picture kids moshing out to in a sweaty club. And much like “Punishment” and “Idiot” the single will cement the sibling duo’s reputation for crafting trippy, weed and beer inspired anthems full of enormous power chords and rousing anthemic hooks.
Just as the Nashville, TN-based sibling duo are about to embark on an East Coast tour, which will include a September 27 stop at the Market Hotel, they released live footage of themselves performing “Roachin” — without Bognano — and it should give everyone a sense of their incredible live show.
Category: indie rock
Arguably best known for her Oscar nominated and Golden Globe nominated role in Martin Scorsese‘s 1991 remake of Cape Fear, and for her roles in a number of major motion pictures including What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Natural Born Killers, Strange Days, The Evening Star, Kalifornia, From Dusk till Dawn and The Other Sister, Juliette Lewis initially launched a recording career in 2004 with her punk rock-leaning band Juliette and the Licks before going completely solo in 2009.
After an eight year hiatus from music and touring, 2016 has proven to be a very busy year as earlier this year, she released “Hello Hero,” a single cowritten and produced by Florence and the Machine‘s Isabella Summers before reuniting her backing band and embarking on successful and extensive tours of Europe and North America. Lewis’ second and latest single of this year “Any Way You Want” was co-written and produced by Cage the Elephant‘s Brad Shultz, Jared Champion and Matthan Minister, and the single according to Lewis is a “60s garage rock, hyped up, sexual banger inspired by The Animals, The Kinks and The Zombies,” complete with a larger-than-life cocksure, swaggering braggadocio and a ton of mischievous sexual innuendo and the open acknowledgement of the fact that the ladies want sex as much as the dudes and can seek it with a similar urgency. But perhaps most important it’s a fun and modern take on a beloved sound, led by a fearless, ass-kicking lady, who knows what she wants while also nodding at The Stooges‘ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” among others.
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Live Concert Photography: The Shondes with Slingshot Dakota and Permanent Wave at Shea Stadium 9/17/16
Over the past couple of months, Philadelphia, PA-based indie rock quartet Oldermost, led by its frontman Bradford Bucknam have received attention across the blogosphere and this site in particular for a sound that draws from Nick Drake, Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd and 70s AM radio rock as yo would have heard on the band’s first two singles “Honey With Tea” and “Finally Unsure.”
The band’s third and latest single is a cover of Graham Nash’s “I Used To Be A King.” And as Bucknum explains in press notes “Songs for Beginners is not necessarily a unique find in a record store bin, but the record still feels like a special discovery when you first set on eyes on the simple and somewhat lusterless album cover. ‘I Used To Be A King’ starts with a tempo just slow enough to hold the listener in a state of suspension. You think: there is a release on the horizon. And then Nash sings ‘It’s alright …’ and the song picks up, but only to build more tension and then there is the most rewarding part of the song at the tail end of the chorus—’No one is going to break my heart again’—where the listener experiences that sweet release. This track also seemed like a great opportunity to highlight the string arrangements that have helped make our musical output stand apart. There’s also a sweetness and a melancholy to the song and it takes a healthy dose of both to mix up an Oldermost song.” While being a fairly straightforward cover, it’s a shimmering, gorgeous cover that emphasizes the bittersweet nature of the original.
New Video: The Darkly Surreal Visuals and Shimmering Shoegazer Rock of Dead Leaf Echo’s “Lemonheart”
“Lemonheart,” will further cement their burgeoning reputation for crafting lush and shimmering shoegazer-like dream pop in the vein of RIDE, Swervedriver and Slowdive — or in other words, layers upon layers of shimmering guitar chords played through gentle amounts of reverb, a propulsive motorik-like groove paired with ethereal and wistful vocals.
The recently released video for “Lemonheart” employs a surreal and nightmarish logic as it features a beautiful young woman selling lemonade at a child’s lemonade stand, cutting lemons for lemonade, and occasionally sucking on a lemon when she encounters a man dressed as a lemon mascot, who’s devastated upon seeing the carnage inflicted on his fellow lemons. Running away, he encounters a female lemon who captures his attention and they return to get revenge on our lemonade stand girl.
New Video: JOVM Mainstays White Lung Return with an Anthemic, Radio-Friendly, Power Chord-based New Single and Trippy Visuals
“Sister,” the latest single off Paradise will further cement the trio’s reputation for urgent, anthemic hook-laden, power chord-based rock paired with some of the band’s most incisive and probing lyrics to date. Sure, the song may possess a radio-friendly, studio polish but it’s still as forceful as ever. Interestingly, the recently released video was directed by Justin Gradin, who also directed the video for “Hungry,” and the video features a desperate man’s attempt at finding love with two beautiful strangers. As Gradin explains in press notes “In a lonely world a man seeks to find love through his telephone. He discovers two women with whom he becomes obsessed with from their captivating and elegant conversations. In the end, these two women’s thrilling lives and escalating partying leave the man feeling isolated and rejected again.It’s basically a 90s chat line commercial on PCP.”
Featuring former members of The Dials, Telenovela and The Returnables, Chicago, IL-based indie rock trio The Pamphleteers, comprised of Rebecca Crawford (bass, vocals), Geoff Atkinson (drums) and Jonathan Ben-Isvy (guitar) can trace their origins to playing together in a series of bands for the better part of a decade, to friendships that go back further than that — and to a tragic event that ultimately ended their primary projects and had them reeling: back in 2005, an suicide attempt/international car crash took the lives of three Chicago musicians, Crawford’s husband John Glick, who was also Ben-Isvy’s bandmate in The Returnables, Crawford’s bandmate in The Dials, Doug Meis and Michael Dahlquist of Silkworm, who was a mutual friend of every member of both bands.
Although reeling from such profound loss, the surviving members of all of those bands, decided that to best pay respect to their dead friends was to continue forward with music; and in fact, it’s been an opportunity for Crawford and Ben-Isvy to find joy and move forward as best as they could. “Shivering,” is the first single off the band’s soon-to-be released full-length debut Ghost That Follows, which is slated for a September 23, 2016 release, and the single consists of shimmering and angular guitar chords paired with propulsive drumming, tumbling bass line, Crawford’s plaintive and urgent vocals and an anthemic hook in a song that sounds as though it were inspired by 80s post-punk — but at its core the song feels simultaneously joyous over small pleasures and haunted by the ghosts of their friends and loved ones and the recognition that some losses linger forever.
Comprised of Darius Byrne (vocals), Brian Ireland (beats, production) and Andrew Eyles (bass), Adult Future is a Toronto, ON-based trio, whose forthcoming full-length effort In The News draws from the contemporary feeling of disconnect and alienation that many of us feel so very deeply. As the members of the band mention in press notes, “the band wanted to make a record that emphasized the singular stories that we all have and share as human beings. All of the songs on this record were inspired by personal stories and were utilized as a method to reconcile those feelings of estrangement. It was an attempt to bridge those feelings of isolation that seemingly contradicts a shared environment where people are literally living on top of each other. Drug abuse, mental and physical illness, violence and love — all of these things impact us individually, but when seen as an amalgamation == is the totality of human history.”
In The News‘ first single “The Leaf House” doesn’t shy away from the fact that we live in dangerous and fearful times but at its core, is a love song — an urgent call for love in the face of a world that seems hopeless and insane; while suggesting as the Buddhists would suggest that opening oneself up to love when things are at their most precarious is an act of true bravery and the most important weapon we have in such fucked up times. Sonically speaking, the Canadian trio pair a looped strummed acoustic guitar line, boom bap beats, twinkling synths and plaintive vocals — and in some way, the song reminds me quite a bit of Jose Gonzalez and his work with Junip but with a desperate and forceful urgency.
Live Concert Photography: Noise Love Festival at The Gateway 9/10/16
New Video: The Dreamy and Hypnotic Sounds and Visuals of Magnetic Ghost’s “Vanish/Vanishing”
Larson’s forthcoming Magnetic Ghost album, Loss Molecules was recorded with renowned indie rock producer Neil Weir at Blue Bell Knoll and by Larson at Magnetic Manson and the effort is slated for a November 18, 2016 release. “Vanish/Vanishing,” Loss Molecules’ latest single has Larson pairing layers of plaintive and ethereal vocals with moody and hypnotic instrumentation consisting of layers of droning and shimmering guitars, a propulsive bass line and stuttering drumming. Sonically speaking, the song reminds me quite a bit of the Silber Records roster.
The recently released video for the song features cinematic and widescreen shot footage of natural phenomenon — i.e., the sun rising in the horizon from the distance, as cars whir past, wind blowing through fields of grain, ice floes in the Arctic, smoke billowing from smokestacks, and so on. It looks like the sort of footage you’d stumble across while watching National Geographic specials — and as a result, it emphasizes the slow-burning, dreamy feel of the song.
Comprised of Canadian-born and based Imran Haniff (vocals), British-born and Canadian based Alex Roberts (guitar), Irish-born and Canadian based John Coman (drums) and Canadian-born and based guitarist Colin Bowers, the Toronto, ON-based indie rock quartet The Holiday Crowd can trace their origins to when its founding duo Haniff and Bowers met in high school. As the story goes, the band’s founding duo had started a conversation over Bowers’ Stone Roses t-shirt, which quickly lead to the duo bonding over a mutual love of 80s guitar pop — i.e., The Smiths, The Stone Roses, The Chills, etc. — and to the duo began songwriting. Interestingly with the release of their full-length debut Over the Bluffs, a cover of Duran Duran‘s “Friends of Mine” for the charity tribute album Making Patterns Rhyme and bit of international touring, which included a set at the 2012 PopFest Berlin and a 2013 European tour, the Canadian band quickly developed a reputation as one of their country’s finest, up-and-coming indie pop bands.
“Anything Anything” is the latest single off the band’s forthcoming, self-titled, sophomore effort, slated for an October 21, 2016 through Shelflife Records and the single will further cement the Toronto-based quartet’s reputation for shimmering and jangling guitar pop that’s not only clearly influenced by 80s guitar pop but also sounds as though it could have been released in the period that influenced it, complete with a swooning and aching Romanticism.
New Video: The Psychedelic Imagery for Toy’s “I’m Still Believing”
As you’ll hear on “I’m Still Believing,” Clear Shot’s second and latest single, the band’s sound has began to lean more towards lush, guitar pop territory as layers of shimmering and jangling acoustic guitar chords (with gentle amounts of reverb) are paired with soaring synths, an anthemic hook and Tom Dougall’s introspective lyrics, all while nodding at Nick Drakeand Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd.
The recently released music video employs a pretty basic concept of having the extremely British looking band performing the song in a variety of strobe lights and Super 8-like filters, sequences of the individual band members broodingly hanging out, brief bursts of animation and Japanese commercials and it gives the entire proceeding a trippy vibe reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s The Wall but with a playful air.
Inspired by The Cure, Tame Impala and others, Istanbul, Turkey-based quartet The Away Days have developed a reputation in their homeland for being at the forefront of a contemporary and extremely Western-inspired indie music scene — and interestingly enough, the How Did It Start? EP, the Turkish indie rock band was released to critical praise from internationally recognized media outlets including The Guardian, SPIN Magazine,Noisey and received airplay from renowned indie station KEXP. Adding to a growing international profile, the band has toured the UK, made appearances at two consecutive SXSW And with a growing international profile, the quartet went on a tour of the UK and made appearance at two consecutive SXSW Festivals and have opened for the likes of Portishead, Massive Attack, Belle and Sebastian and others.
Over the past couple of years, the Istanbul, Turkey-based quartet have released a batch of singles that have received attention across the blogosphere, including this site; however, the band has been working on the material which, will comprise their highly-anticipated full-length debut effort. Much like the album’s lush and atmospheric first single “Less Is More,” the album’s latest single “World Horizon” is a slow burning, moody and atmospheric ballad consisting of plaintive vocals paired with ethereal and shimmering synths, stuttering, four-on-the-floor drumming and equally shimmering guitars that’s largely inspired by the band members’ own lives in Istanbul, living in “never ending lies . . .” And as a result, the song possesses a mournful air, as the song’s recognizes a loss of innocence and belief in innocence and goodness.
Initially begun as a solo side project from her then-primary projects Vivian Girls and All Saints Day, singer/songwriter and guitarist Katy Goodman has developed a burgeoning national profile with the release of her first three critically applauded albums with La Sera — including, the project’s self-titled debut, her sophomore effort Sees the Light and her third effort Hour of the Dawn. And with each successive album found Goodman experimenting and expanding upon her sound with Hour of the Down revealing an 80s guitar pop influence, in particular The Smiths, The Pretenders, and others.
Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site for a while, you’d know that Goodman released her fourth La Sera album, Music For Listening To Music To earlier this year, and the material on the album revealed an artist, who has gone through a series of personal and artistic transitions including Goodman’s newlywed husband Todd Wisenbaker, who may be best known as a member of Music For Listening To Music To‘s producer Ryan Adams‘ backing band, and as the producer of Goodman’s third album Hour of the Dawn joined his wife’s project as a cowriter, guitarist and collaborator. Sonically, the material continues along the veins of its predecessor — sounding deeply indebted to the aforementioned The Smiths and The Pretenders while at times also nodding at Johnny Cash (in particular, think of “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Jackson” and countless others.) And lyrically, the material focused on romantic relationships — whether our desire to be and feel loved, the raw and bitter ironies exposed during the breakup of a relationship and more. Of course, adding to the retro feel and tone of album was the fact that the material frequently employed the use of male/female vocals on top of a familiar and beloved sound featuring shimmering guitars played through reverb as you’ll hear on album singles “High Notes,” and “I Need an Angel.”
Beginning in October, Goodman Wisenbaker and company will be embarking on a month-long national tour — and just before the tour, the members of the project will be releasing the digital-only release Queens EP. The EP’s title track is a propulsive and upbeat bit of shimmering guitar pop that was written while Wisenbaker was on a leisurely stroll through East Hollywood at dusk one night. And as Goodman adds, “To me, the song stands for being an important, passionate, loving person in your own life, every day.” While sonically the song continues to cement the act’s reputation for crafting swooning nd shimmering, 60s and 80s inspired guitar pop, the song lyrically deals with the passing of time and the experience of small yet profound joys with someone you love.
As I mentioned the band will be on tour throughout October and it includes two NYC area dates — October 22, 2016 at the Mercury Lounge and an early October 23, 2016 at Baby’s All Right. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.
TOUR DATES:
10/07 Pomona, CA @ Glasshouse
10/08 San Diego, CA @ The Hideout
10/09 Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
10/10 Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf
10/12 Austin, TX @ Sidewinder
10/13 Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
10/14 Kansas City, MO @ Riot Room
10/15 St Louis, MO @ Firebird
10/16 Nashville, TN @ High Watt
10/18 Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
10/19 Chapel Hill, NC @ Pinhook
10/20 Washington, DC @ Song Byrd
10/22 New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
10/23 Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right (early)
10/25 Boston, MA @ Brookline Teen Center
10/26 Buffalo, NY @ Mohawk
10/28 Toronto, ON @ Silver Dollar
10/29 Detroit, MI @ El Club
10/30 Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
11/01 Denver, CO @ Lost Lake
11/02 Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
11/03 Reno, NV @ Holland Project
11/04 San Francisco, CA @ Swedish American Hall
11/05 Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg Theater
Earlier this year, I wrote about Kestrels, a Halifax, Nova Scotia-based indie rock/noise rock trio comprised of Chad Peck (guitar/vocals), Devin Peck (bass) and Paul Brown (drums). And with the 2014 release of The Moon Is Shining Our Way EP, the Canadian indie rock trio emerged both nationally and internationally as the EP’s title track received radio airplay on CBC Radio 3 and as a result of touring with internationally renowned acts including Speedy Ortiz, Ringo Deathstarr, Beliefs, Grays and Ash. Reportedly, the sessions that produced The Moon Is Shining Our Way laid the groundwork for the songwriting approach and sound the band would then take into the studio for their self-titled, third full-length effort, slated for a September 30, 2016 release through Hamilton, Ontario-based label Sonic Unyon.
The album’s first single “No Alternative” was a decidedly pedal effects-led power chord- are paired with thundering and propulsive drumming, a tight bass line, an anthemic hook you can hear kids shouting along to in a sweaty club and Chad Peck’s plaintive falsetto as the song reminded me quite a bit of Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins, Silversun Pickups, My Vitriol and others, complete with a swooning urgency. The album’s latest single “Waiting” sounds as though it owes a sonic debt to Brit Pop and shoegaze; in fact, to my ears, I’m reminded quite a bit of RIDE, as a motorik-like groove is paired with psych rock-leaning guitar chords, propulsive drumming, ethereal vocals and an anthemic hook.