The Dead Ships’ bluesy, blaring garage-rock has earned the L.A. trio comparisons to bands ranging from the Black Keys (the blues) and the Strokes (the garage). As evidenced by their new single “Canyon,” though, it’s just as likely that the blood running through the veins of singer-guitarist Devlin McCluskey and bandmates Alex Moore and Christopher […]
You’d think Hollywood was situated at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains from hearing Rose’s Pawn Shop’s finger-pickin’-good new album. “Gravity Well” races along to the steady heartbeat of American traditional music, a little less dress-up than much of the folk that’s been tailored for mainstream pop tastes but no less emotional and catchy. […]
Noah Lit’s first outing fronting Noah and the MegaFauna was 2012’s “Anthems for Stateless Nation,” a gobsmacking collision of gypsy jazz, world music and fun-house orchestration that, between him and his nine bandmates, seemingly left no instrument untouched. It was as if the co-perpetrator of onetime indie-rock sophisticates Oliver Future had something to prove – […]
Sullen Ray is not very downcast at all. In fact, it’s not even Ray. No, Sullen Ray is the musical vehicle for singer-songwriter-guitarist Seth Eubanks, now joined by singer-songwriter Dee Clement after previously working with a rotating cast of collaborators. Their new single “Without Out” offers a cinematic slice of atmospheric guitar pop – imagine, here, […]
Exactly as its title suggests, “10,000 Emerald Pools” is a pretty song, really pretty. And it’s the rare pretty pop song these days that doesn’t assault your senses with synthesizers; instead, this one relies on a simple insistent bass line, simply perfect guitar chords and the vocals of Garrett Borns, whose gender-unspecific falsetto is pretty […]
If you’re headed to Pioneertown this weekend for the Desert Stars Festival and do some of the things people do while communing in the Joshua Tree environs, your experience might sound something like this. Slow White is the L.A.-based psych-rock crew of singer-guitarist Reed Palmer, bassist Daniel Aquarian, drummer Matt Kavannah and keyboardist Whitt Evens. […]
It’s been almost five years since the Black Ryder – the L.A.-based duo of Australians Scott Von Ryper and Aimee Nash – released their album “Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride,” which placed them squarely in the middle of the pack of next-wave shoegazers. Given the long incubation period for the follow-up, could the Black […]
Night Terrors of 1927 emerged last year with an EP of emo-gone-electro (not a pejorative here) titled “Guilty Pleas” that was worthy of the resumés of the principal songwriters, Jarrod Gorbel (The Honorary Title) and Blake Sennett (Rilo Kiley, the Elected). With their dramatic flair for composition and meatier-than-most lyrical offerings, you wondered what Night […]
Here’s one that’ll fit snugly on your shelf in between those Cocteau Twins, Psychedelic Furs, Echo & the Bunnymen and New Order records. (Huh, you don’t have such a shelf? What are you, new?) Stranger Kings are an Orange County-based four-piece launched by guitarist Eric Campuzano and bassist Herb Grimaud. The latter made ambient rock […]
The melodic mopery of the aptly named Dark Waves is perfect for anyone who’s spending a lot of time alone thrashing out all those unrequited love issues. It’s the project of singer-songwriter Nick Long, once of the punk outfit Dead Country, who’s now taken a turn toward intimate, meticulously produced synth-pop. With the release this […]
