The new single from Cold War Kids comes sprinting out of the gates on a lickety-split piano line, frontman Nathan Willett upbraiding himself in that bluesy tenor before drummer Matt Aveiro and new guitarist Dann Gallucci join the fray. It’s as exhilarating a four minutes fans have heard from the SoCal since Willett was complaining that […]
Although PAPA‘s new clip for “Put Me to Work” probably would have been more suitable for Halloween festivities, it’s union of drum banging, dancing guitar-playing skeletons and puddles of water still present an energy. The odd combination came to life via the band’s usual visual collaborator Jonathan Hausfate and inspiration from ’90s Nickelodeon TV series, “Pete and […]
Mind the Gap threw their collective hats in the ring of pop contenders in 2011, mixing feel-good acoustic numbers with dancefloor-friendly electro to win fans at residencies on both sides of town. They sell themselves as rainbow-coalition entertainment – “MTG is a Sri Lankan, a Mexican, a Korean and a Jew from Cleveland,” their bio boasts […]
San Diego County-bred Kera & the Lesbians make desert-tinged barroom blues that you imagine witnessing in the Most Interesting Saloon Ever. If you witnessed any of the quintet’s October residency at the Bootleg Bar, you get it – Kera Armendariz’s jean-jacketed take on lounge singing comes from an artist who isn’t afraid to challenge stereotypes […]
Arrica Rose straddles the line between wounded folk songstress and nostalgia-laden dream-popper, a dichotomy that served her music well on 2011’s “Let Alone Sea,” one of those long-players with enough sonic and emotional shifts to held your attention from front to back. On the newest effort from her band Arrica Rose & the …’s (say […]
The first two songs from new L.A. quintet DEBT are giving me fits trying to figure out exactly to whom they are indebted, but maybe the fake time stamp on their possibly fake band photograph will help me out … Husker Dü? “Slack Motherf*cker”-era Superchunk? Tsunami? Whatever the songs’ lineage, the Palisades-bred fivesome of Spencer […]
On last year’s “It’s Not You, It’s Us” EP, Daniel Ahearn & the Jones revealed the ability the capture a moment and crystallize emotions in a single verse. Ahearn and co-conspirator Mindy Jones deal in finely crafted Americana with harmonies pretty as a painting; their love-obsessed folk-pop is at once wry and open-hearted. The duo’s […]
Yellow Red Sparks sound like the folk band you’d invite home for a sit-down dinner (you know, as opposed to the ones you’d wanna slip out back and share a flask with). Which is OK; nothing sounds affected on their self-titled debut album, due Jan. 29 via Org Music. Songwriter Joshua Hanson, in concert with […]
Fol Chen, L.A.’s merry band of sound collagists led by producers (the men known as) Samuel Bing and Julian Wass, return in March with their third collection of wonky, effects-laden pop. The band announced today that “The False Alarms” would be out March 19 on Asthmatic Kitty, the label that gave us Fol Chen’s “Part […]
Foxygen, the psychedelic duo of Sam France and Jonathan Rado, made a big splash with their “Take the Kids Off Broadway” EP last year, the momentum from which has made their forthcoming full-length “We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic” (out Jan. 22 via Jagjaguwar) one of 2013’s most anticipated albums. Originally […]
