Tag: mp3s

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

I’ve written quite a bit about the Bay Area-based avant-garde free rock/psych rock collective Dire Wolves over the years, and although the act has gone through a number of significant lineup changes, the act — Jeffrey Alexander (guitar, synths), who has also had stints running Secret Eye Records and as a member of Jackie O’ Motherfucker and Black Forest Black Sea; Georgia Carbone (vocals); Brian Lucas (bass); Faun Fables‘ Sheila Bosco (drums, piano); Village of Spaces‘ Arjun Mendiratta (violin) and Spires that in the Sunset Rise’s Taralie Peterson (sax) — has a long-held reputation for crafting deeply hypnotic, lysergic music and for being incredibly prolific, releasing over a dozen albums since their formation back in 2008.

Now, as you may recall, the Bay Area-based band’s soon-to-be released album Grow Towards the Light is slated for a June 28, 2019 release through Beyond Beyond is Beyond Records, and the album, which is their fourth official album also marks the band’s first album with Carbone contributing vocals — typically Carbone singing in her own invented language. Thematically, the album as the band’s Jeffrey Alexander explains in press notes, “tries to express the interconnectedness of all things.” “Spacetime Rider,” which I wrote about a few weeks ago was an expansive and free-flowing jam centered around shimmering guitars, a motorik groove, slashing bursts of violin and Carbone’s Nico-like wailing. And while recalling early Velvet Undergound, the track had a patient, painterly air.

Interestingly, Grow Towards the Light‘s latest single “Discordant Angels” is a slow-burning and hypnotic dirge centered around shimmering violin, a gypsy-like rhythm and Carbone’s ethereal wailing. The song finds the band effortlessly meshing elements of classical music, psych rock and folk in a way that’s simultaneously trippy, haunting and unsettling.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
Pekoe Cat is the solo electro pop recording project of singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Kyle Woolven. Interestingly, his latest single is the funky and sleek Neon Indian-like, 80s synth pop inspired “Jungle Cop.” Centered around a wobbling bass line, shimmering and arpeggiated synths, an enormous, club-banging hook, a sultry vocal delivery and various found samples, the track is fueled by a hazy nostalgia. “I have a very vague memory of toddler me playing some game on NES where a guy with a motorcycle helmet goes around shooting up the city. That’s what inspired the song. I have no idea how accurate those memories are or if that game even exists. And I think I should be a little concerned if that’s the kind of thing I consider to me a fond memory. Either way, it’s the closest I’ve ever come to achieving the sound I was going for,” Woolven explains in press notes.
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Arthur Kay is an Oslo, Norway-based singer/songwriter, composer and keyboardist, who’s been a prominent member of his hometown for the better part of a decade, as the frontman of the galactic jazz act Dr. Kay and His Interstellar Tone Scientists and touring with the likes of Norwegian rapper Ivan Ave.

Interestingly, Kay will be stepping further into the spotlight as a solo artist with the release of his forthcoming self-titled, solo debut. Slated for an October 11, 2019 release, the EP finds Kay drawing from several disparate influences, at points channeling Thundercat, James Blake, and Sun Ra Arkestra. However, the EP’s latest single “Holiday Pay” is a decidedly house music influenced track, centered around layers of glistening and twinkling synths, cowbell-led percussion and an infectious hook. And while being a shimmering, summery club banger, “Holiday Pay” is celebration of Norwegian employers being required by law to pay employees a certain percentage of the previous year’s wages for you to use towards summer vacation time. It’s a much-needed contemporary worker’s anthem — and I’m sure that many hardworking Americans wish they’d have that.

“It’s a great example of how socialist ideas work really well in the Norwegian society,” Kay explains in press notes. “Your employer is ordered by law to hold on to 12% of your income through the year, and pay it to you every June, just before the summer holidays start. Forced savings, basically, but without any banks or cash stuffed under mattresses.” Kay adds, “I consider ‘Holiday Pay’ a modern day workers’ anthem, a song anybody with a steady job in Norway can relate to. A song you can shove in your freelancing friends’ faces. They may travel the world on a regular Wednesday, and work from a laptop in a bar in Tokyo in the middle of the night But if you have a steady job, you get the holiday pay in June.”

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Over the first half of this year, I’ve written a bit about the Queens-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Longo, the creative mastermind behind Thin Lear, a solo recording project largely inspired by the likes of Todd Rundgren, Shuggie Otis and Kate Bush.  Longo’s latest Thin Lear album Wooden Cave is slated for release later this year, and as you may recall, album singles “The Guesthouse,” and “Death in a Field” were deeply indebted to different styles of 70s rock.

Wooden Cave‘s third and latest single is the delicate and almost spectral “Your Family.” Centered around a folk-like arrangement of twinkling piano, strummed guitar and Longo’s plaintive falsetto, the song is imbued with an aching and inconsolable sense of loss. Much like its predecessors, the song reveals a heart-on-the-sleeve earnestness paired with a careful and deliberate craftsmanship that ends with a simple yet profound mantra of self-acceptance. “It’s an orchestral track that explores the aftermath of losing a partner, the ensuing self-imposed exile and the struggle to re-emerge whole again,” Longo says in press notes. 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Centered around the friendship and collaboration between its found members — Steven van Betten (vocals, guitar), Gregory Uhlmann (guitar, vocals), Marcus Hogsta (bass) and The Americans’ and HAIM’s Tim Carr (drums), the Los Angeles-based art rock/post-punk act Fell Runner has developed a reputation for a unique take on guitar rock. Imbued with a literary sensibility, the band pairs vibrant vocal harmonies and expressive polyrhythms influenced from their studies with Ghanian drum master Alfred Ledzekpo with an urgent and uninhibited air that comes from the improvisational nature of much of their work.

The Los Angeles-based band’s recently released sophomore album Talking finds the band branching out a bit from their initial influences, while crafting material that thematically touch upon themes of frustrated communication, failed language and dealing with one’s own shortcomings. Tracked live to tape in Tim Carr’s bedroom, the album also finds the band attempting to accurately capture the spontaneity and improvisational nature of their live sets.  Talking‘s latest single “Same Way” is centered around a breezy, tropical-influenced arrangement centered around fluttering electronics, propulsive polyrhythm, a sinuous bass line and angular bursts of guitar — and while bearing an uncanny resemblance to Omega La La-era Rubblebucket, the song possesses a breakneck, improvisational quality in which after repeated listens, you feel that you can’t quite predict where the musicians will go next. Honestly, it’s one of more unusual and exciting indie rock songs I’ve heard in several months.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
Deriving their name from the address of a ramshackle house inhabited by several of the bandmates in their formative years, the members of Austin, TX-based indie rock Duncan Fellows — dual frontmen Colin Harman (vocals, guitar) and Cullen Trevino (vocals, guitar) along with Jack Malonis (keys backing vocals, guitar), Tim Hagen (drums) and David Stimson (bass) — traded their previous life of piling into various bedrooms for piling into a tour van in their mid-20s, centered by a shared sense of adventure. Interestingly, with the release of two EPs and a full-length album — 2013’s Twelve Months Older EP, 2015’s Marrow EP and 2017’s Both Sides of the Ceiling, which featured the attention grabbing single “Fresh Squeezed” — the band emerged into the national scene. That shouldn’t be surprising, as the band’s work explores multiple vibes, feelings, tempos and perspectives — and frequently within the same song.
Slated for a July 24, 2019 release through Warner Records’ new distribution channel Level Music, the Austin-based indie rock act’s forthcoming Eyelids Shut EP reportedly finds the the band exploring the dynamic sonic balance while concurrently toeing a similar line in their own lives. “We tend towards the deeper stuff you have to chew on longer,” Harman says. “Our tendency is to sing about the more difficult things we encounter in life, and as we’ve gotten older we’ve experienced heavy things that have added more serious layers to what we do. But at the same time our most popular song is largely about waking up and making breakfast. We definitely talk about straddling that line.”
Reportedly, the EP’s four songs thematically and sonically touch upon loss, reflection and how getting older lends a deeper  perspective on both. “As you get older, your perspective on things like loss changes but you still live with everything that’s happened to you,” Trevino says. “Be it the loss of a person, or even the loss of a version of a person,” Harman adds. “Death is definitely a part of it, but change and a part of someone being lost is something we are singing about as well.” Malonis adds, “I also resonate with losing a version of yourself, how as you’re experiencing these losses you’re losing the more naive parts of yourself. A lot of it lines up with the theme of our first album: becoming an adult and growing wise to the ills and parts of the world that aren’t so pretty.”
Eyelids Shut‘s latest single “Cursive Tattoo” finds the band seamlessly jumping and from anthemic power-chord rock, twangy, Southern fried rock and New Wave-like indie rock within an expansive, trippy yet breakneck song structure held together by anthemic hooks and a swinging rhythm. The song is underpinned by a bitter and awkward confusion that can only come from an unsettling and equally confusing longtime relationship. “I got the name ‘Cursive Tattoo’ from actually looking at the tattoo of my name on my partner’s arm,” Harman says in press notes. “It was in the middle of one of those moments that feels very distanced relationally, like you can’t find the other person and they can’t find you. Those moments feel really jarring and insurmountable while you’re in them and that is what cursive tattoo is about, the feeling, and the physical spaces surrounding it. Much like getting a tattoo, this song is about the wild ride of a permanent commitment. Tim really smashed the cans on this one – guiding us rhythmically handicapped members between straight and swung. Cullen naturally sprinkling some sweet sweet piano over the chorus in a few breezy improv takes. Dave providing sincerity as he does. Myself providing one quarter of the lead chorus lick but zero quarters of the skill to perform it. Jack executed on this endeavor. A true collaboration.”

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of the first two singles “Shambhala” and “Darts,” the up-and-coming Dublin, Ireland-based experimental rock/psych rock sextet Fat Pablo quickly emerged into their homeland’s busy music scene, essentially carving a new musical niche for themselves with a sound that some have described as recalling Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Grizzly Bear.

Fat Pablo’s latest single “Ganki” is a gauzy and woozy bit of psychedelia centered around a propulsive bass line, layers of shimmering guitars within an expansive song structure that finds the band carefully walking a tightrope between anthemic urgency and slow-burning pensiveness in a way that reminds me of JOVM mainstays Caveman. “Ganki took a good while for us to write. We went back to the drawing board a few times with this one as it was tough to merge the urgency at the beginning of the song with the mellowness of the latter half,” the band explains in press notes. “We think we’ve found a nice balance where you get the best of both worlds. We try not to act as a one trick pony, but rather an acre of unicorns.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Last month, I wrote about the Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based psych rock quartet Possum, and as you may recall the band, which is comprised of Brandon Bak (guitar, vocals), Tobin Hopwood (guitar), Patrick Lefler (bass) and Bradley Thibodeau (drums) met within their hometown’s psych rock and garage rock scenes. The members of the band bonded over their mutual love and appreciation of acts like of CAN, Grateful Dead, Fela Kuti and Ty Segall — but the end result is a sound that can be loosely described as a fusion of garage rock, krautrock, psych rock and ethno jazz, complete with rapid tempo and time signature change, hypnotic riffs and chugging, motorik grooves.

Live, their shows are an immersive experience in which the band pairs high energy performances and trippy sounds with lysergic visual projections by The Oscillitarium. And as a result of their live show, the members of Possum have shared stages with the likes of the aforementioned Ty Segall, All Them Witches, Shannon and The Clams, Bombino, L.A. Witch and Chad VanGaalen.

Interestingly, the Canadian psych rockers have maintained a steadfast and ardent DIY ethos in which they’ve independently recorded, mixed and produced their material using old analog tape machines — and they’ve packaged their music themselves. In fact, Possum’s full-length debut, Space Grade Assembly, which is slated for release later this month continues the band’s DIY ethos with the material recorded almost entirely live and mixed by the band’s Brandon Bak and Tobin Hopwood. Album single “The Hills” was an expansive and heady mix of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin power chord-fueled riffing, thunderous drumming, Afrobeat and Latin-tinged percussion that found the band’s production nodding at shoegaze, classic psych rock and krautrock simultaneously.

Clocking in at a little over eight minutes, “Worms Hollow,” Space Grade Assembly‘s latest single is a mind-altering and expansive track that’s one part 60s inspired garage psych, one part motorik groove-driven krautrock and one part space rock centered around a focused and urgent performance.

Possum is currently on a lengthy North American tour. Check out the remaining tour dates below.

Tour Dates
June 7 – Chicago, IL (Emporium)
June 8 – Kansas City, MI (TBA)
June 9 – Denver, CO (Second City Music Collective)
June 11 – San Francisco, CA (Knockout Lounge)
June 13 – Portland, OR (Post 134)
June 14 – Seattle, WA (Clock Out Lounge)
June 16 – Vancouver, BC (Static Jupiter)
June 17 – Victoria, BC (Copper House)
June 18 – Nanaimo, BC (Nanaimo Bar)
June 19 – Kelowna. BC (Fernando’s)
June 20 – Kamloops, BC (Blue Grotto)
June 21/22/23 – Calgary, AB (Sled Island Muisc Festival)
June 24 – Regina, SK (TA Vinyl and Fashion)
June 25 – Winnepeg, MB (Handsome Daughter)
June 26 – Minneapolis, MN (Terminal Bar)
June 27 – Milwaukee, WI (Cactus Club)
June 28 – Detroit, MI (Kelly’s Bar)

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the course of three albums, the Los Angeles-based noise rock trio, Froth comprised of Joo-Joo Ashworth, Jeremy Katz and Cameron Allen have developed a reputation for restless experimentation with forays into shoegaze, psych rock and post-punk — but interestingly enough, their fourth album, the Tomas Dolas co-produced Duress, which is slated for release Friday through Wichita Recordings reportedly finds the band stepping out from the shadow of their influences and crafting a sound wholly their own with the material being unapologetically experimental yet accessible. In fact, the album’s material incorporates analog synthesizers, overdubs and drum machines, along with traditional rock instrumentation.

“77,” Duress‘ second and latest single is centered around shimmering arpeggiated synths, bursts of feedback, a motorik groove featuring a sinuous bass line and shuffling, four-on-the-floor-like drum programming paired with ethereal vocals. And while recalling Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk, Lodger-era Bowie and Suicide, the eerily minimalist track possesses a murky vibe.

“Toward the end of the album, Tomas and I were really digging deep into my voice memos trying to see what was worth making into a real song,” the band’s Joo-Joo Ashworth recalls in press notes. “I had him play bass and synth while I sung and played some guitar. Only with Tomas would we ever come up with an odd timing song. The lyrics are mostly about when I was living with my parents for a couple months after I got kicked out of my apartment by an evil landlord.”

The members of Froth are currently on the road, touring to support the new album and the tour includes a July 3, 2019 stop at Elsewhere’s Rooftop with A Place to Bury Strangers doing a DJ set. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

Tour Dates

# = w/ Black Marble
* = w/ Versing
% = w/ A Place To Bury Strangers DJs (DJ Set)
$ = Release Show w/ Adult Books

6/7: Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room, Desert Daze Presents $
6/19: Las Vegas, NV @ Bunkhouse *
6/20: Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar *
6/21: El Paso, TX @ Love Buzz *
6/22: San Antonio, TX @ Lime Light *
6/23: Austin, TX @ Barracuda *
6/24: Dallas, TX @ Club Dada *
6/25: Houston, TX @ Satellite *
6/26: Memphis, TN @ Hi Tone Cafe *
6/28: Madison, WI @ UW-Madison *
6/29: Chicago, IL @ Logan Square Arts Festival *
6/30: Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups *
7/2: Washington, DC @ Comet Ping Pong *
7/3: Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere Rooftop * %
7/5: Somerville, MA @ ONCE Ballroom *
7/6: Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz *
7/7: Toronto, ON @ Baby G *
7/8: Detroit, MI @ UFO Factory *
7/10: Sioux Falls, SD @ Total Drag *
7/12: Denver, CO @ Globe Hall *
8/23: Eindhoven, Netherlands @ Fuzz Club Festival

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Last month, I wrote about Brijean Murphy, a Los Angeles-born, Oakland-based percussionist, who has made a name for herself as a highly-sought after touring musician with stints in the touring bands of Toro Y Moi, U.S. Girls and Poolside, as well as several others. Interestingly, Murphy can trace the origins of her musical career to her childhood — Murphy’s father, Patrick is a percussionist and engineer, who taught a young Brijean her first drum patterns on a pair of congas that she inherited from the late Trinidadian steel pan drum legend Vince Charles.

The Los Angeles-born, Oakland-based percussionist managed to find some free time to collaborate with Doug Stuart, a producer, who shares a background as a jazz and pop session musician, who has worked with JOVM mainstays Bells Atlas, Meerna, Luke Temple, Jay Stone and others. Written and recorded in marathon sessions at their intimate home studio, wedged between rarely over-lapping tour schedules, the duo formed BRIJEAN, a project that meshes Murphy’s Latin jazz and soul upbringing with Murphy’s 70s disco and 90s house-inspired production.

Slated for a June 28, 2019 through Native Cat Recordings, BRIJEAN’s debut effort, WALKIE TALKIE EP finds Murphy stepping out into the spotlight as a solo artist in her own right. Now, as you may recall, the slickly produced “Show and Tell” was centered around a sinuous and propulsive bass line, glistening chimes, shimmering synths, Latin soul percussion, dreamily delivered vocals singing metaphysical-leaning lyrics, and a sleek hook within an expansive and trippy arrangement that nods at Roy Ayers and classic house. The EP’s latest single, the dance floor friendly EP title track “Walkie Talkie” features a sinuous, 90s house music-influenced production consisting of shimmering arpeggiated keys, tweeter and woofer rocking low-end and Latin percussion — and unsurprisingly, the song brings Larry Levan, Frankie Knuckles and Between Two Selves-era Octo Octa to mind, complete with a coquettish air.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Andy Clockwise is a Sydney, Australia-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer, who emerged into his homeland’s music scene with the release of his critically applauded, commercially successful debut double album Classic FM. As a result of the album’s success, Clockwise earned opening slots for INXS and The Stranglers‘ Hugh Cornwell.

After briefly relocating to London, Clockwise eventually wound up in Los Angeles, where he quickly immersed himself into his new hometown’s music scene. Receiving airplay on NPR, KCRW and KROQ, Clockwise also discovered that the successful he attained back in Australia managed to translate rather quickly in the States, as he released a string of successful EPs before the release of his sophomore full-length effort The Socialite. Additionally, since relocating to Los Angeles, Clockwise founded his own record label, Exhibition Records, “to make as much music as possible before we are old,” the Aussie-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer says in press notes. In fact, labelmates Bella Darling and George Stanford released material on the Motown and Factory Records inspired label.

Last summer Clockwise released The Good Book EP, an effort that featured singles “Open Relationship,” a collaboration with Warpaint‘s Stella Mozgawa and “The Best,” which debuted on the US Speciality Radio Charts at #15 with fellow countrymen The Avalanches. Both singles spent several weeks on the FMQB Radio Charts in North America with “Open Relationship” landing at #1 on KROQ’s fan-voted Locals Only Charts — and the track received airplay on KCRW and Alt 98.7FM in the States, and double J and FBi in Australia.  He’s also toured with The Black Keys, Julian Casablancas, and Warpaint. Along with that Clockwise has been extremely busy working in the studio on multiple releases for artists and composing for film and television, with some of his compositions appearing in Netflix’s Wanderlust, Meet Me In Montenegro, Pump The Movie and several others.

Building upon that momentum, the Aussie-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineering will be releasing his forthcoming album War Stories in three volumes over the next two years. After dealing with the illness and death of his mother, Clockwise took the time to work on the album’s material in his New South Wales-based studio, writing and recording the album primarily by himself — but with the assistance of co-producer and co-engineer Omar Yakar, Jr. at Boulevard Recording, once Clockwise returned to Los Angeles to finish it. “War Stories is about the wars we put each other through…a pop musical ode to human dysfunction, heartache, sex, grief, revolution, and the death of our youth,” Clockwise explains in press notes. “War Stories was pretty much made by myself in LA/London/Australia while my mum was ill and i was traveling back and forth to look after her and getting back to what I actually enjoy about music which is folk/classic post punk/ pop / my Irish trad music and early electronic house — I gave it a name Warrior pop. Something to stop you from thinking everything is awful. It sounds alright too.” 

Centered around propulsive drumming, atmospheric synths, a sinuous bass line, shimmering guitars, War Stories‘ latest single is the moody and rousingly anthemic, New Wave meets Bruce Springsteen-like “This Town (Used To Be Great).” The song’s heartbroken narrator tells a familiar tale of finding love and failed love in a new town — and as a result, the song is imbued with the lingering  ghosts of past love and the bitter and uncertain feelings it can invoke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Currently comprised of founding member Trevere Thomas (guitar, vocals) along with Douglas Andrae (drums) and Alex Ricart (bass), the Richmond, VA-based noise rock/math rock/metal act Hex Machine can trace their origins to its formation by Thomas, Municipal Waste‘s and Human Remains‘ Dave Witte (drums) back in 2004. Over the course of two EPs and two full-length albums — 2009’s Omen Mas and 2012’s critically applauded Fixator, the Richmond-based act firmly cemented a sound that drew from from The Jesus Lizard, Melvins and the Dischord Records catalog, but with their own unique take; in fact, Fixator found the band flirting with anthemic choruses, metallic drumming and a wider ranger of guitar sounds, which in some way would foreshadow what was to come for the band. And as a result of a growing profile, the members of Hex Machine toured with the likes of Clutch and Melt-Banana.

After a series of lineup changes and the release of their sophomore album, Thomas and Andrae joined Today Is The Day as the band’s rhythm section, playing behind Steve Austin for hundreds of shows across the world. Interestingly, Hex Machine’s forthcoming album Cave Painting, which is slated for a June 21, 2019 release through Travere’s own label Minimum Underdrive, is the Richmond-based trio’s first album in seven years.  Reportedly inspired by Thomas and Andrae’s time in Tday Is The Day, Cave Painting‘s material finds the band pairing their sludgy and lurching rhythms with elements of 80s New Wave — in particular XTC, The Police, Killing Joke and The Psychedelic Furs; in fact, Hex Machine covers one of my favorite Psychedelic Furs songs on the album, “President Gas.”

Cave Painting‘s latest single is the bruising “Scimitar Blues.” Centered around layers of sludgy power chords, red-hot flashes of hi-hat and thunderous drumming and growled vocals, the song sounds as though it were inspired by Sisters of Mercy and Chain of Flowers — but with oddly shifting time signatures and moods, which give the song a menacing and downright evil vibe.

Hex Machine will be on tour throughout July. Check out the tour dates below.

Tour Dates
July 17 – Richmond, VA @ Wonderland w/ The Wayward
July 18 – Raleigh, NC @ Slim’s w/ The Wayward
July 19 – Athens GA @ Caledonia Lounge w/ The Wayward
July 20 – Atlanta, GA @ The Bakery w/ The Wayward
July 22 – St Louis, MO @ FOAM w/ The Wayward
July 24 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Howlers w/ The Wayward, Microwaves
July 25 – Cambridge, MA @ Hong Kong w/ The Wayward
July 27 – Philadelphia, PA @ Mothership w/ The Wayward, Stinking Lizaveta

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
The Black Fever are an up-and-coming Toronto-based post-punk act, currently featuring Shoe (vocals, guitar), Pat Bramm (bass, back-up vocals), and Dan Purpura (drums), and the band will be releasing their latest full-length album Unarticulated Wants on June 14, 2019. Reportedly, the album’s material thematically reflects the current sociopolitical moment — political instability, growing economic disparity and the everyday dramas of love and life.
The album’s latest single is the mid-tempo hook-driven track “No Work.” Centered around shimmering guitar lines, a motor groove consisting of thumping drumming and a sinus bass line, a slick yet forceful hook paired with Shoe’s plaintive vocals, “No Work” manages to recall Turn On The Bright Lights-era Interpol; but as the band notes, the song possesses  an underlying anxiety that comes from the difficulty that many people — in particular, new, college graduates and young professionals — have finding and keeping a decent job in which they could survive.