Figs Vision implore you to dance in front of your mirror. Thankfully, the L.A. outfit’s new album “Mother” gives you more than just glowstick 4/4 electro as incentive. Figs Vision – the vision of childhood pals Jordan Spoliansky and Gunner Sixx (Nikki’s eldest son) that now includes Zackary Darling and Storm Sixx – draws inspiration equally […]
On their new album “Days in the Sun,” Cobalt Cranes have found the sweet spot between two movements that drove 1990s guitar rock – the edgy angst of the Pacific Northwest and melodic psychedelia of the British shoegazers. They’ve come up with a name for it, “California grunge,” say Tim Foley and Kate Betuel, the […]
If the sublimely beautiful “It’s Okay,” the new song from Two Sheds, sounds like a song with a past, it’s probably for a good reason. The Sacramento-born band has been in hibernation for a while – it was back in 2006 that the band released its debut “Strange Ammunition,” with an EP the next year. What […]
Irontom have always looked like the skater kids down the block, and not the dangerous ones. That is, until you put a microphone in Harry Hayes’ hands and musical instruments at the disposal of bandmates Zach Irons, Daniel Saslow, Dylan Williams and Dane Sandborg. Then all hell breaks loose, with the L.A. quintet unleashing complex […]
A lot of the time, L.A./San Francisco fuzz-bombers Terry Malts sound pissed off enough to be our age. On two full-lengths, 2012’s “Killing Time” and last year’s “Nobody Realizes This Is Nowhere” (both of which we came to regrettably late), the band of singer-bassist Phil Benson, guitarist Corey Cunningham and drummer Nathan Sweatt married the […]
Last year, Los Angeles’ Beat Club released the Best Damned Disco-Pop Single a Big Label Didn’t Spend Thousands of Dollars to Shove Down Your Throat. It was titled “Something Better,” and then – in between other jobs and commitments – the band slowly set about making something better. This week, the quartet of Jeff Kite […]
Evan Koga is not a new face to fans of finely crafted folk music – the SoCal native was part of the quartet Chief, which he formed with a bunch of his NYU schoolmates and which released the album “Modern Rituals” on Domino Records in August 2010. With Chief having splintered, the Santa Monican has […]
L.A. quartet Mirror Talk bum-rushes the 1980s with a funky tint; the quartet first came on our radar with last November’s EP titled “Infatuation,” which probably should have been plural. The band – Court Alexander, Steven Lopez, Sean Krell and Dave Lewis – articulate their infatuations with New Wave, dance-floor-ready R&B and keening synths, wrapping it all […]
Shoegaze stalwarts Modern Time Machines have been in hibernation since the release of their 2012 full-length “Continuity Girl,” as the lineup fluctuated around main man Ben Golomb. His quartet now includes Mike Raines, Ryan Connor and Stacy McClarnon, but the new single “Loveletters” including writing and guitar contributions from John Riccardi (ex-Eskimohunter), who was in […]
We have no idea what makes us happier – the fact that the Muffs have released their first album in 10 years or the fact that they have been embraced by the crew at Burger Records, whose young roster is dotted by Xerox copies of garage-rockers from the Muffs’ heyday and before. Either way, if […]
