Making big strides with shoegaze influences. In their previous EP released back in 2012, Is/Is began scratching the surface of the genre we love and know as shoegaze. After spending almost an entire three years on tour, cooped up in a small, beaten-down minivan, the...
Support DC bands! DC band Cigarette has described themselves as a spiritual band, however they are better described as a spiritual movement. Cigarette creates a level of discreet music that speaks volumes, transcending what some consider minimal. Much like modern art,...
British new-wave heartbreak Your tearful pint of Ben and Jerry's has nothing on this album. This synthpop Seattle band makes mourning as upbeat as anyone can possibly manage. Most of the album stays pretty dark and lamenting, using synth and depressing Robert...
Krill Forever Krill follows up their brilliant second album, Lucky Leaves, with perhaps the best-named EP in history: Steve Hears Pile in Malden and Bursts Into Tears. The EP is a concept album about two Bostonian chums, Steve and Mouth, who become characters in the...
Manhattan garage-pop Four NYC bartenders walk out of a job and start a band. I forget how the joke ends, but it definitely isn't SKATERS. With all the classic elements of your standard rock band contrasting mellow vocal melodies, Manhattan sounds like a modern...
Atmospheric desert blues straight out of Africa Tinariwen is a group of Tuareg musicians hailing from Mali, Libya and other African nations that perform a mix of traditional Tuareg music and Western guitar rock called “desert blues” featuring apparently...
Thanks go to the inimitable DJ Paz Monge (aka pazzybb) for nominating Interpol's 2002 debut Turn On The Bright Lights as this week's Rainy Day Album. In contrast to the pastoral neo-classicisms of last week's pick, Grizzly Bear's Yellow House, this album is a...
Raw emotion and guitars The first full-length album released by Baby Baby is pretty decent. There is a diverse range of songs, however some of them lacking climactic moments. The timber of the vocals is similar to those of Paul Banks of Interpol and Hamilton...
A hard rock/lo-fi curtain of sound that's sloppy in all the right ways The only way to truly describe the sound of The Book-Burners is “slapped together,” not in the sense that it's shoddily assembled, but in the sense that their influences are fairly varied...
Not your dad’s Bossa Nova BossacucaNova is a Brazilian jazz trio known for combining bossa nova with electronic elements. Though the band explores new ways of making music, their sound remains firmly rooted in bossa nova and samba. BossacucaNova takes the...