Young and scrounging through message boards and libraries, a first attempt to find interesting modern Chinese bands did not yield me much. I had an interest in the country for a long time, but never pressed on the music much. When I did, I only turned up some world...
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Real Estate ÛÒ Atlas (Domino)
WOOOOO The first twenty seconds of Atlas makes it seem as if the clouds are parting and a ray of sun is shining down as the long awaited three years since the release of Days, has finally come to an end. In “Had to Hear,” Martin Courtney begins with a simple and...
St. Vincent – St. Vincent (Loma Vista)
Bow down This is the album where Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, proves herself peerless. The eleven songs on her latest, eponymous project could have been written by no one but herself, displaying the poppy yet wildly unpredictable songwriting of her previous releases,...
Bleeding Rainbow – Interrupt (Kanine)
Fast and efficient garage punk. Interrupt, the fourth album from Bleeding Rainbow, is a quick affair, running just over a half hour. Bleeding Rainbow nonetheless fit a lot into that half hour, mostly by playing fast and cutting the frills. Most songs on the album...
Ava Luna – Electric Balloon (Western Vinyl)
A mixed bag of funky and sometimes punky art-rock. When Ava Luna released PRPL, the lead single from Electric Balloon, some made the mistake of viewing the slow, synth R&B track as a sign that the Brooklyn art-funk group had moved away from the chaos that...
The Men ÛÒ Tomorrow’s Hits (Sacred Bones)
Ex-noise rockers settle into new identity On last year's New Moon, The Men made headlines by exploring alt-country in addition to their punkier, noisier sound that they made their bones off of, essentially splitting that record into two halves. There's no such...
Linda Perhacs – The Soul of All Natural Things (Asthmatic Kitty)
She'll invite you over for macaroons, in a kind of creepy way. At 77, Linda Perhacs came out of retirement to make her second album in 44 years. Her first album, Parallelograms, flopped on the charts, but gained a cult like following through internet forums and the...
Broken Bells ÛÒ After The Disco (Columbia Records)
Forming in 2009, Broken Bells Brian Burton (Danger Mouse) and James Mercer (The Shins) released their second album, After the Disco, in February; fitting as most of the songs on the record sound like an afterthought. Not to despair all fans, as there are glimmers of...
We Are Scientists- TV en Francais (Dine Alone Records)
Indie-rock band still has chemistry Returning after a four year break from album releases, We Are Scientists manage to provide another solid album with TV en Francais. The overall sound is a bit darker than the pep and pop that was associated with their past releases,...
Colleens – Wild Dreams (Self-released)
Catchy, light, and technically impressive debut album. Texan band Colleens show promise of being a light, intelligent indie pop band with their debut LP Wild Dreams. Much of the album centers around love, whether it is seeking it, having it, appreciating it, or...