I’ve had the chance to listen to some pretty awesome music this year, not just as a member of the indie music media but as a fan in general. Of course there’s plenty of trash that we have to wade through to discover the real studs amongst the duds, but overall I feel like 2018 has been a winner in terms of productivity and increased exposure for the new, up…
Fresh off their relocation to New York City, space rockers Water and Man return with their new full-length LP Phantasie, the much anticipated follow up to 2014’s Into the Infinite. I’ve been closely following Water and Man’s journey since their inception almost five years ago in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and I can assure fans of the group that Phantasie lives up to all the high expectations everyone had for their sophomore effort. What…
The Drought, by Ryan Chernin, is tremendously engaging from its onset. A deliberate guitar line, a set of strings that rise and fall, and spades of passion keeps fans interested throughout. Chernin’s ability to bolster the overall harmonies of The Drought is unmatched; together, the instrumental and vocal sides combine to make a seamless track. Ryan is able to meld together an orchestral, 1960s rock sound a bit before the…
Bright Colors is the current single by Montauk, New York’s Liquid Phase. The track has a dreamy style that links together They Might Be Giants and Out of Time-era R.E.M.. Laid back and sunny in its disposition, this effort allows each of the constituent elements of Liquid Phase to shine. The bongos and bass combine with chunky guitars. Countless styles are broached during this cut – there is a hint…
Mariel Darling’s debut single No Mirrors builds upon the foundation of Jess Glynne, Taylor Swift, and Halsey. A shining 1980s new-wave meets Owl City backdrop provides a resounding highlight to Darling’s vocals. There is a richness to Darling’s vocals that ensures that pop aficiados are able to find something beautiful in this track. We particularly like the ability of Mariel to add more than lyrical content. At a great many…
Keep in Touch is the lead single off of All Types of Kinds’ new EP, Love Songs (Or Songs for Your Ex). The effort blends intricate guitars and a unified blast of the band as the track moves towards its single. Keep In Touch has a chorus that will tattoo itself on listeners’ hearts. The narrative quality of the track is further bolstered through the sizzling lick of the guitars.…
There’s a strong hint of Leonard Cohen in Darren Jessee’s songwriting on The Jane Room 217. You can hear it from the first tune “Anything You Need” and it never relents. He has a strong connection with the love song tradition, in some ways, but brings an uniquely well-written power to this type of song. The song has light keyboard work in the background and Jessee’s guitar up front, but…
On I Believe, Cowboy Mouth is able to blend together 1990s alternative and country-infused rock into a track that will get listeners singing along. Rich vocals and smart arrangements between the vocals / guitars and guitars/drums make a melody that will be tattooed deep into fans’ psyches. While I Believe only makes it to the three-minute mark, the band is able to make a massive track that is deep, engrossing,…
Michael Pinder’s “So Confused” is a perfectly polished piece of pop rock that brings together hints of Weezer, Mr. Mister, and Journey. The mastering of this single allows each element to shine on its own while contributing to a cohesive whole. We’re particular fans of Pinder’s vocals, the ropy bass lines, and the on-point drumming that fans will encounter during this effort. Keep focused on the two-minute-mark of So Confused,…
Pacific’s “Life In Short” is an engrossing, emotionally intense effort that builds off of the framework of Muse, mid-1990s Rush, and Coheed and Cambria. The guitar / vocals dynamic that is presented to fans during the single’s chorus ratchets up the momentum nicely. The band is taut as all get out, too – there is a complexity to Life In Short that ensures the song is fresh five or ten…
ash.ØK’s “Holding Sand”is an intricate and heady composition that blends together natural and electronic sections. With nods made to traditional / classical arrangements and more modern styles (e.g. drum and bass, trap), the resulting track stands out boldly. Holding Sand’s haunting strings do more than contribute to the overall melody of the song, but provide fans with a narrative as rich as any vocal-heavy effort. The song is like an…
Hard to believe it’s been five years since The Devil Makes Three last put out a record of all-original material (2016’s satisfying Redemption & Ruin was a creatively curated covers album that spoke to a general theme). And it takes just one or two songs into their new one, Chains Are Broken, for you realize just how much they were missed.
When Omnivore Recordings first announced their re-release of the Posies’ debut “Failure,” it was just a matter of time before they got around to the band’s two best efforts, 1990’s “Dear 23” and 1993’s “Frosting on the Beater.”
Every artist needs a swan song that essentially encompasses their entire aesthetic and compresses it into a single track that gives audiences an idea of who they really are as a performer. For Led Zeppelin it was “Stairway to Heaven.” For Madonna, “Like a Virgin.” For aspiring electronica sensation NIK:11 it may very well be her song “4Play,” which has been having one of the most accomplished years of any…
Hip-hop has officially reached an apex that can be distinguished both literally and figuratively from its first climactic creative peak in the early 1990’s. In this scenario, the most explosively popular subgenre to dominate the commercial side of pop music for the last quarter century is being divided into two subgroups; the stewards of the old school, and the innovators of tomorrow’s hip-hop who are bound by no rules, regulatory parameters or…
Kiss Me Like You Miss Me, the latest track from Closer to Zero, links together Strike Anywhere, Rise Against, and Alkaline Trio into a musically intricate effort with supersonic vocals. Hitting listeners over their heads with delightful guitar / vox dynamics, the many levels of this sample ensure that listeners will be playing the single over and over. A bit of fuzz is what unites these disparate elements, as Closer…
Although not always on the same page, every now and again country music flirts with rock n’ roll, and I’ve found that in these flirtations, it never sounds the same way twice. Sure, there have been hard pumping southern rock bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd or Molly Hatchet that have harnessed the sheer power and rumble of rock’s blistering guitars and thunderous basses, but there have also been more acoustically minded…
Picking the right time to release a record can be a challenging process even for the most experienced of artists. Winter albums are designed to warm us up during the coldest of months, summer albums are usually meant to get us excited about being out having fun in the sun. All of them are set up to fulfil the sonic needs of us, the consumers, but moreover they can artistically…
Abel Oliva Menendez has recorded and released music under the moniker Naurea and “stage name” Olimann since the early 2000’s and, nearly two decades on, sounds as witless and unconvincing as ever. His latest collection New Zombie Generation deserves the title Variations on a Theme as Menendez dazes listeners with twelve by the numbers cuts that often can pass as alternate takes on other songs. His understanding of what makes for collar-grabbing, hard-hitting metal/industrial…
Synthetic stripes of melody drift before our ears, and ticking of a clock reminds us that time is at hand. The pressure is on as the percussion starts to kick in on the club mix of AV Sunshine’s “Time Bomb,” and AV himself doesn’t even have to inform us that we’re going to have to act fast if we’re going to make it to our destination – dance ecstasy –…