The long-in-the-works full-length album from KAV – the nom de tune of Kavin Sandhu – is informed by the singer-guitarist’s dual residency in L.A. and London, as well as his long resumé that included DJ gigs at London’s Getloaded club nights. He was guitarist in the third incarnation of the Happy Mondays, so there’s tint of […]
A lot of bands spend a lot of calories lengths to make their music come off as dark, heavy and dangerous. Arden Fisher seems to get the job done by simply plugging in her guitar. Abetted by Josh Benton and Chris Cano, Fisher’s band Dekades has not-so-quietly flown the Goth rock flag proudly the past […]
The debut EP from L.A.’s Mean Dream is a throwback to the early days of post-punk and shoegaze, a lo-fi but nonetheless intoxicating slab of misshapen guitars and vocal lassitude. The self-titled affair is the work of L.A. natives Bela Messex and Ellie Gordon, who began their collaboration as an electro-pop duo before deciding to […]
Siblings Hank and Charlotte Fontaine have coined a term for their stylishly retro pop music: “new-wop.” Indeed, the Fontaines’ forthcoming debut EP is a finger-snapper, not unlike the doo-woppers of old, but their music’s modern touches reveal a little ’80s New Wave and contemporary indie-rock influence, so they haven’t been living entirely in the black-and-videos […]
Orange County quintet the Devious Means look like a lot of other indie-pop quintets – four guys and a gal, taking a perfect band photo – and on their first two EPs they sounded like a lot of ther indie-pop quintets too: Serviceable melodies, boy/girl vocals, big choruses and all. But where other artists are […]
Seldom have we come across band that less looks the part as Sweet Bump It, the Echo Park-based septet who appear to have just walked out of an Adrienne Rich study group. You know what they say about looks, though. Fronted by diminutive shredder-in-training Nicole “Paco” de Leon and co-founded by Jenna Eyrich, Sweet Bump […]
Ryan Pollie has impressed us with the very fact that he’s been able to hold on to Los Angeles Police Department as a recording moniker (bands named for government agencies like Chicago Transit Authority, eventually Chicago, didn’t fare as well back in the day). But Pollie’s recordings are the real ticket. When he released the […]
Victory for the win? Not so much. Singer-guitarist Robert Fleming has changed his nom de tune to Sneakout (ostensibly to avoid confusion with Victory Records) and embarked on making a follow-up to his infectious 2013 full-length “Victory Is Music.” If Fleming’s buzzing pop-blues (nice for selling cars) recalled the early days of rock, he graduates […]
“Colors of the Cold,” the first song on dream-weaver Rocco DeLuca’s new album, somehow runs two temperatures at the same time, at once suggesting icy and distant while glowing with the warm ambiance concocted by producer Daniel Lanois. The song is but one example of the wizardry on the songwriter’s “Rocco DeLuca,” which comes out […]
We first spotted WAZ as Pete Yorn’s guitarist way back when, and we last saw him co-directing musical traffic in the electro-pop trio Hot As Sun, with his wife Jamie Jackson. In between, the Cleveland native released two albums and an EP (2008-09) and carved out a swath as a composer for film and television. […]
