On In the Crystal Canyon, the follow-up release to the band’s A Cloud in the Cathedral LP, Unsparing Sea doesn’t just stick to the basics, but includes a cello and an upright bass, for a more orchestral sound; think The Arcade Fire. Unsparing Sea even use a vox, vibraphone, flugelhorn, and a saw…
Clearly, my obsession with the mandolin and progressive rock drummers makes me the perfect person to review Soldier of Love, the latest release from English R&B artist Sade. It’s been 10 years since Sade’s last effort, and I assume a lot has changed in the world of R&B…
I had heard of Le Loup before listening to Family; I’d heard the name being thrown around a lot, but I had never actually sat down and listened to the band, so I had no idea what to expect…
The Dustys’ Sticky Blood is a six-song EP with a somewhat whimsical feel from a garage/psychedelic/folk band formed in Arlington, VA. The entire EP contains introspective lyrics over fairly upbeat music, which lends itself to a more somber sound occasionally….
Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse) has no fear of overexposure. Whether it’s producing a Damon Albarn vehicle or linking up with rock icons Beck and Sparklehorse, it really feels like Danger Mouse has his hand in everything. This time around, mutual respect has brought Burton and The Shins’ frontman James Mercer…
Lee Simmons’ Doniphan Nights is an indie gem that should make Texans proud. Simmons produced it himself — besides track six — in his home studio in Austin, where he received assistance from other Austinite musicians. He is not just the average singer/songwriter, but original in his craft…
Hard though it might be to imagine, the new split-7″ release by Houston stoner-sludge-rock dudes the Linus Pauling Quartet and Austinite psych-rock heroes ST37 kind of took me by surprise, in good ways and bad. First off, the Quartet’s track, “Monster,” eschews the band’s trademark thundering guitar attack…
Easy Rider at Houston Worldfest Film Festival’s Tribute to Dennis Hopper: Dennis Hopper’s “Billy” and Peter Fonda’s “Captain America” make enough profit from a one-time cocaine deal that they are finally able to set out riding their custom motorcycles…
Go buy this album. Right now. Don’t bother reading this review. Honestly, the time it takes you to read this could be better served searching the internet for a good deal on Astro Coast. For the rest of you who enjoy reading a poorly reasoned and misinformed review, continue on…
Earthless is a power trio from San Diego that plays instrumental Japanese-style psychedelic rock. The band features Nebula guitarist Isaiah Mitchell, Electric Nazarene bass player Mike Eginton, and Rocket from the Crypt/Hot Snakes/Clikitat Ikatowi drummer Mario Rubalcaba…
It’s been four years since Midlake’s very successful The Trials of Van Occupanther put the Denton quintet on the indie rock map. Fans who’ve been chomping at the bit for new material can now rejoice, as the former UNT jazz students have released their newest album…
Finding the balance between accessible and original isn’t easy, but Los Fancy Free have managed to do it. Every song on their new album, Never Greens Vol. 1, is instantly listenable and holds your attention to the very end…
Sleepwalking Through The Mekong is more than just an inside look at a band and its music; it’s an inside look at a different culture. I’ve seen several DVDs that bands have put out, and I must say that I think this one from Dengue Fever is probably my favorite…
Homemade Confetti is The Lost Revival’s debut album, though they formed in 2005. They originally had a more predictable line-up, but added a synthesizer and drum machine after having their guitars stolen; the shift changed their whole vibe…
Luke Franks Or The Federalists play gentle indie folk-pop, and on their album The Way We Ran, Franks has the unfortunate problem of sounding like Dave Matthews. Their music isn’t as bad as Dave Matthews’ is — it has more of a Ryan Adams quality…
When you see a band calling themselves “Dirty South Revolutionaries,” a certain identity will come to mind. Most people will think of a rap act with a heavy political/sociological lyrical slant. The group that appears on Queen City Underground, however…
Don’t let the first 20 seconds of Almost and Always fool you — this isn’t Norah Jones’ new album. And it’s neither Simon nor Garfunkel. It’s David Mead. And it’s his fifth album since 1999. David Mead is a singer-songwriter whose music gives off a feel of early-’70s folk rock…
Glorytellers is Geoff Farina’s (Karate, Secret Stars) roots project. More folk-oriented than anything else he’s done, Atone is a beautiful, mature album, with lots of his interesting details in the band parts. The Glorytellers are probably the best complement for his delicate singing style yet…
If indie-rock could talk and if you got it drunk and just let it talk for a few hours, at that point, in the twilight of conversation, when neither party is really listening any more, but more helping each other to fill the void of silence…
To paraphrase the great comedy Blazing Saddles, “What in the Wide Wide World of Sports is this?” HORSE the band is a quintet of musicians from California that specialize in something called “Nintendocore”…
Honestly, it’s apparent right from the first stagger-stomp second of opening track “What the Misanthrope Said” which way Omotai’s Peace Through Fear is going to go: heavy, thundering, hammer-like slabs of sound crushing you to the floor while the gods look on, laughing, from high, high above…
This band must really hate writers. How else can you explain naming your band “The Ultra Siberian Pant Factory”? Length and depth of syllables aside, the inclusion of “Pant” and not “Pants,” like it should be, is a mother-humper…
Perhaps one of the most-hyped bands of 2010, Beach House belies its sedate, ambient piety with energetic and really, really loud performances. Teen Dream was released in early 2010 and set the course for Beach House’s current aesthetic departure from their previous albums’ output…
So, I’ve seen Dead To The World several times now, but I only recently procured their CD at a Röcbar show, and the best thing about it to me was that I recognized some of the songs immediately, so a major pro for this band is the strong continuity between their live and recorded music…
It’s funny, but while The Jonx do generally come off as a “serious” band — the flat-sounding talk-singing, the complex structures, the furious, almost jam-y feel to some of the songs — one of my favorite things about ’em is their almost subversive playfulness…
Slow Gun Shogun is a one-man band whose first offering, a self-titled album recorded in Chicago, explores the simplicity of early country, folk, blues, and rock’n’roll. Comprised of five original songs and one cover (“Lonesome On’ry & Mean,” by Waylon Jennings), the album is a fairly standard interpretation…
“Quest For Fire”? Really? That’s the band name you decided on? I mean, why not at least do one of those 12-word names, or something with “wolf” in that all the hipsters dig? With a name like this, everyone is going to think that you are 1) a group of archaeologists doing authentic Cro-Magnon music…
The British indie-folk band’s follow-up to its highly successful debut album wasn’t quite what I expected, but I love it nonetheless. The First Days of Spring for the most part leaves behind the toe-tapping tunes we came to love on Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down…
DriftingFalling is a really cool little local label specializing in atmospheric electronica. They recently released the debut from Kontakte, a UK trio billed as a combination of “ethereal melodies, celestial tones and a pulsing electronic backbeat to produce a hypnotic noise with depth, space and staggering intensity”…
On seven-song EP Trying Got Us Nowhere, Elika, an electro-indie-pop band led by a female singer, is sure to have you swaying. It’s shoegazey and lush, not quite fitting into the 1980s. It’s nice mood music, for the background, sleeping, driving, or headphones…
Electric Courage Machine was one of my top stand-out bands for 2009. Hailing from New Braunfels, TX, they’re one of those bands that you marvel aren’t bigger than they are. Their latest EP, Wasted, was a steady fixture in my tape deck all summer…
Progression, I’m finding, is generally a good thing in the end, even if it doesn’t necessarily seem like it at first blush. Back in 2005, Tody Castillo’s self-titled solo debut appeared and promptly blew my doors off with its in-your-face hooky choruses…
Dead Plans, the second album from Detroit band The Bodies Obtained, has a creepy, 1980s-infused sound, with bleak lyrics and a well-thought-out combination of synthesizers. Their first album, From the Top of My Tree…
Nothing ruins a good idea more than poor execution, a point exemplified by “fusion” concepts. The world is full of them: the “Southwest eggroll,” hybrid cars less efficient than cars from the 1980s, countless movie sequels, etc. It takes a determined bit of genius to merge two concepts…
By all rights, this shouldn’t work. It really, seriously should not work — how could you expect it to, after all? Songs of awkward, nebbishy, teenage nerddom with titles like “My Mom Thinks I’m Cool” or “Unibrow,” played by a crew of guys who’re closer to my own age than they are to high school…
There’s an awesomely free, effortless feel to Miike Snow’s eponymous debut, so much so that you can practically hear the roguish grins and collective shrug — Miike Snow feels not like a trio of musicians setting out to “make” something, but instead just letting everything spill out and grabbing onto whatever sounds good…
It’s funny, but until I heard Freelance Whales’ Weathervanes, it’d never really occurred to me how much influence Ben Gibbard’s had on music; I mean, the guy’s an icon, these days, both for Death Cab and The Postal Service, but all of a sudden I’m seeing threads connecting folks like Freelance Whales…
So I’ve kind of gone about this bass-ackwards, to be up-front about it, but honestly, I’m now thinking maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. You see, I got a hold of a copy of the Hell City Kings’ 2009 LP, The Road to Damnation…
Relatively new on the scene, Crossing Togo consists of two men who create wonderful music together. They possess a pop-rock feel, with steady guitars and a likeable singing voice. Their songs are like a journey into a colorful landscape, with transcendentalist themes…
There’s a strangely rural thread that winds its way through the entirety of Akron/Family’s newest, Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free, seemingly pointing backwards from the band’s NYC-bred sound to their roots in the Midwest, and that rustic, Middle America upbringing does indeed shine through…
