[Friends of Buzz Bands know of my longtime affection – some might call it a fetish – for Kiwipop. Buzz Bands is also fortunate to have a correspondent who lives in the neighborhood. So, straight outta Auckland, a nice album for you to download:] Arch Hill Recordings was born in a studio on the Great […]
Radar Bros., “The Illustrated Garden” (Merge) – “I want you, I need you / Right now, my life’s on a cereal box,” Jim Putnam sings on “Quarry,” and you’re not sure whether he’s entranced in a moment of morning reverie or fretting over his bio. It’s probably not the latter – Putnam has been making […]
The Deadly Syndrome, “Nolens Volens” (self-released) – Someday the Los Angeles quartet might make an album as explosive as its live show, but for now we have this: a sophomore record filled with tender moments that feel like pleas for emotional truth in times when guys wearing the right hipster uniforms are anointed prophets (and, […]
The Whigs, “In the Dark” (ATO,) – “There’s a hundred million people in my mind,” singer-guitarist Parker Gispert admits in the leadoff track to the Athens, Ga., trio’s third album (out next week). “Which is me, and which is not?” Whoever they are, on this album they’re not all imploring Gispert, drummer Julian Dorio and […]
To say that the Morning Benders’ “Big Echo” represents a creative leap is a bit of an understatement. The Bay Area-based quartet’s sophomore album – which comes out Tuesday on Rough Trade – sounds as if someone fast-forwarded Christopher Chu and company from puppy love straight into midlife crisis. The Benders’ 2008 debut, “Talking Through […]
There are people who know Jack Gibson as an aspiring filmmaker, as an untiring supporter, and even as a perspiring drunk. This week, with the release of “Shelters,” his third album as Tenlons Fort, Gibson has solidified his identity as an inspiring songwriter. Whether “Shelters” – a startlingly beautiful, strikingly intimate collection of 10 songs […]
The Capshuns, “Time to Say” (self-released) – The L.A. quartet’s agile rock sounds as if it rode in on the slipstream of the British Invasion, the soundtrack to top-down, scarves-flying car chases involving ne’r-do-wells driving vintage Aston Martins. Blaring guitars and chugging rhythms carry the day, and although singer Patrick Thomas – at his best […]
Back in the early part of last decade, a group of sharp-dressed guys who called themselves the 88 started playing their roughed-up power-pop around town. Some reviews, especially of their first two albums, fingered the Kinks as an influence. The 88 may have lost the suits that were their trademark early on, but the quartet […]
No matter what name we end up knowing them by – Dios, Dios (Malos) or, as their legally safe play now has them billed next week, Wearedios – the underdogs from Hawthorne embody the myth of being in a rock band. They’ve made critically praised music and played Coachella; they’ve gone largely AWOL and faced […]
[I will let the rest of the Internets fill you in on the new albums by OK Go (recommended) and Vampire Weekend (not). Here are some releases of L.A. interest, some of which I’m late to catch up to:] Jason Boesel, “Hustler’s Son” (Team Love) – The last of his Rilo Kiley bandmates to bust […]
