Blogs

  Funky, Soulful, Electronic, and Dance-inspiring Maya Vik has hit a perfect balance between her own unique sound and years of inspiration reaching back to the 1970s and 1980s. On It is funky with fun bass lines and colorful instrumentation. The album‰'s second...

  Angry Arcade Fire on acid Reminiscent of the aura of “Reflektor‰” but transcending in the Rocky Horror Picture Show universe, Electric Order manages to be confusing and appealing in the same riff. Originating in Seattle and dominated by a guitar god, Atomic...

  Garage goes lo-fi What do you get when you cross San Francisco, a garage band, and a synth? A little surprisingly, this band is no joke. POW! packs listeners with a punch, proclaiming a “natural Doppler effect‰” through their songs. While not quite your run of...

  Girl-rocker in love. If you‰'ve ever strongly related an 80s montage of a teenage girl getting ready for a cute date, Molly Thomason is right for you. This 19-year-old Canadian has butterflies in her stomach and crushes on her mind. She‰'s sounds like a fizzy...

  After making a name for himself producing for some of the biggest names in ‰underground‰' hip-hop, such as Joey Badass, Talib Kweli, and and Curren$y, Lee Bannon could have easily just become another boom-bap producer with a secret penchant for more aggressive...

  For being tagged with the unfortunate genre descriptor of ‰post-rock‰', a genre so often defined by its swelling crescendos into explosive climaxes, Mogwai, on their latest effort, very much lack the huge eruptions that someone would have expected from the...

  Music you‰'d find in 80s John Hughes movies Austin based band The Black and the White Years provide a combination of indie rock and electro pop vibes in their album Strange Figurines. Strange Figurines manages to flow seamlessly from one song into another while...

Minutia Sundays LAST.FM Column Description This ain’t no radio show. This is me pouring my blood, sweat, tears, and various other bodily fluids onto a Word document. It’s a window into my brain full of noise, sappy lyrics, pretty guitars, and unfulfilled Emma Watson...

  Harsh takes on old classics This is not Nina Simone. These may be Nina Simone songs, but they are nowhere even close to what you would recognize as the legendary singers originals. Completely redone by avant rockers Xiu Xiu, they are now stripped down, harsh,...

  Rocks meets electro California rock band Young the Giant manages to keep things fresh in their sophomore album Mind Over Matter. As with their debut album, Sameer Gadhia‰'s vocals bring something different to each song found in Mind Over Matter. From the the...

Old-timey Rock and Roll, like really, really old-timey Full of grit and grime, but not without a certain flair for showmanship, JD Wilkes & The Dirt Daubers harken back to a golden age when rock was in it‰'s infancy and the likes of Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl...

Still takin‰' care of business The lead single from Capital Punishment alum Mac DeMarco‰'s upcoming record Salad Days, “Passing Out Pieces‰” hints at a more reflective, pensive direction for indie rock‰'s class clown. Behind massive synth chords, Mac muses on the toll...

Calling all dads If the latest album from John Stirratt and Pat Sansone of Wilco‰'s side project is any indication of their musical taste, one would be forgiven if their bigger band‰'s forays into “dad rock‰” are all their fault. At Fifth‰'s best, The Autumn Defense...

Sweet, simple surfer songs “Habibi‰” means “my love‰” in Arabic, making itself an appropriate name for this group of sweetly innocent surfer girls. Their preferred combination of mid-tempo paces and sugary group harmonies put a pleasant spin on even their most...

  1980s meets low fi. 88 92 is Houston-based quintet Wild Moccasins ode to rock bands of the 80s, with strong vocals eerily reminiscent of Debbie Harry from the band‰'s female vocalist Zahira Gutierrez. Gutierrez‰'s vocalist can be best heard on 88 92‰'s standout...

  Dynamic post-punk with shades of pop and 80s alternative. Vancouver-based band Mode Moderne manages to combine the best of post-punk with that of dreamy indie-pop, and the final product, new album “Occult Delight‰Û, is definitely worth a listen. Occult...

  Super fun, true, poppy garage rock with an edge. With their self-titled debut album, Drowners might just solidify a reputation as a fun, tenacious garage pop band. The whole album is compact, catchy, and full of cute-yet-melancholy songs about the struggles and...

A Molotov cocktail of 50s guitar heroics and 60s garage Probably the most distinctive and interesting thing about the Rebel Set are the Phoenix band‰'s two front assault of Link Wray-esque guitar lines and eerie, swirly twirly garage keys. The dark mix of organ and...

Funky, Soulful, Electronic, and Dance-inspiring Maya Vik has hit a perfect balance between her own unique sound and years of inspiration reaching back to the 1970s and 1980s. On It is funky with fun bass lines and colorful instrumentation. The album‰'s second track,...

Alternative-Pop, Indie, generic Remember listening to alternative-pop music alone in your room when you were in middle school? Faraday Wave by We Do This is bring back that early 2000s alternative-pop and attempts to update it by adding an indie sound. The six song EP...

Epic, energetic indie rock. Welsh band Los Campesinos! fifth album “No Blues‰” is a high-energy, eclectic collection of indie rock. The band seems to have matured lyrically from their earlier works, demonstrated by the poignant moments of reflection on “A Portrait of...