Indie/Alternative Stream
Matt Pryor – Wrist Slitter – Music Stream
The Get-Up Kids have been the butt of many of my emo/bad indie rock jokes. The band got less terrible with every release, as the cute college girls I assigned to review them for the magazine often noted. I actually liked their cover of The Cure’s “Close to You” on Before You Were Punk Vol. 2. Liked, I say.
Boardwalk – Music Stream
Pleasant, predictable, and absolutely mesmerizing. While it’s a dick move to say an entire genre is pretty indistinguishable (to the obvious outsider), that’s what I’m gonna do. Breathy, gauzy female vocals, and some hipster dude handling the deeply-reverbed, mellow guitars, and drum machine set on snooze.
Blitzen Trapper – VII – Music Stream
No, the title of the new Blitzen Trapper album isn’t meant to be clever or anything (I thought maybe this was their, like, fourth album), this is their seventh full-length. And the music, heard here on “Ever Loved Once,” is just as straightforward and unpretentious, with a confident alt.country swagger.
Wampire – Curiosity – Music Stream
Almost passed on this one, because “Spirit Forest,” the first song I heard, is by far the worst. Terrible. It’s the kind of song unsigned opening bands play, and you fight every impulse to storm out, cuz NO headliner is worth enduring such derivative tinkerings, such lame production, such unsure vocals.
Fossil Collective – Tell Where I Lie – Music Stream
Not out to set the world on fire, this UK duo aimed to strip it bare and focus on the songwriting of their childhood heroes (Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, Simon & Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills and Nash). It’s a breath of fresh air (ironic, seeing as it’s based on the past, without being vintage). Fossil Collective make timeless, gentle, acoustic rock.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Specter At The Feast – Music Stream
When they appeared on the scene around the turn of the century, BRMC didn’t seem to have the same clarity of vision to hang with the garage revivalists they were lumped in with (The White Stripes, The Hives), nor did they have the songs to match up favorably with their obvious influence, The Jesus and Mary Chain.