Fans of cute, nerdy, experimental low-fi indie-pop music will love this Montreal threesome. The Unicorns offer up unusual songs with a playful and innocent undertone.
You know how Weezer’s Maladroit rocked fuzzy guitars in a weird, slow, brashy way that nobody really liked? The same concept is in effect here. The Special Goodness is the brainchild of Weezer drummer Pat Wilson.
Madcap rocks out on their third album with punk, reggae, rock, and ’80s dance inflections. “Keep Dancin” made me sit up and give this band a serious listen. Then I got up and danced. That’s how catchy the songs are.
Straight from Alabama to the big time. With their six-song debut, they’ve managed to mix melodic indie rock and hook-laden emo with just a touch of ’80s-influenced pop-rock.
With steady, heart-bearing emotion washing through the notes like a young Michael Stipe, Tim Hort has created the R.E.M. album we’ve all been wishing for since Out of Time.
Smogtown is influenced by the L.A. roots of Redd Kross, Circle Jerks, and, to a lesser extent, Black Flag. They have a sense of humor, write engaging and funny lyrics, and write feverishly fast and high-strung riffs.
Monstrously sluggish tempos, the thud-heavy, stuttering beats and ponderous basslines keeping more or less the same speed and emotional heft on every track as the guitars drone compellingly and the vocalist intones the words in a spoken monotone.
This collaboration between Nevermore drummer Van Williams and his buddy from back in New York, Christ Eichhorn, is a fully-fleshed, highly-technical, expertly-crafted batch of avant-garde metal wonder tracks.
I’m all for an album revolving around a certain theme, but after seven all-too-similar melodic and anthemic jams about the sun/surf/ocean waves, I don’t ever want to hear about oceans again.
That-other-guy-from-Pavement, Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg, returns with his second Preston School of Industry album, sounding more Terror Twilight than either “Date With Ikea” or “Two States.”
Yhe band wanders through a double album’s worth of textural seas without catching much fish, often too busy appreciating the scenery and not working the net harder.
I suppose it’s called Pleasure Vibrations because the theremin is one of the primary instruments. Seksu Roba is also down with le mini-Moog, but their music sounds more like Felix Da Housecat, Ladytron, and Miss Kittin to me.
David Thomas of Pere Ubu and Cheetah Chrome of Dead Boys felt the band they split from (RFTT) had “unfinished business.” 26 years after the band split, they toured. The next year, this basically live-in-the-studio disc appears.
A combination of pounding, proggish but pedestrian power metal, fronted by a mid-operatic female vocalist, landed somewhere between the Goth metal world, old Gathering, low Nightwish, and Lullacry.
A combination of Motörhead, Entombed, and soundtrack music would be the best way to describe this, smacked upside the head with doses of progressive thrash and Italian doom.
A distinctively different Map. The “band” (Dooley, Swift and Lenz often moonlight in Starflyer 59) sounds much, much “lighter,” with sprawling Californian sunshine replacing past shadows and darkness.
Life At Sea sound vaguely familiar, like lost b-sides of your favorite albums or a supergroup made up of your favorite ex-members. Life At Sea have good songs. And you should listen to them.
Seven edgy but catchy little numbers, the frenzied but slightly off-center energy of the band’s attack bringing to mind both Fugazi and Di’Anno-era Iron Maiden.
Karmella’s Game write accessible synth pop without dumbing down too much. There are smart vocals, tasty harmonies, and most importantly, songs that go somewhere.
Born with the same visceral affection as Jeff Buckley and the sixth sense of pop mastery ala Jason Falkner, Coryell’s moody take on polished California pop is like an aural orgasm.