Ever since they thundered down the 101 from Templeton a couple of years ago, Night Riots have lived by the go-big-or-go-home credo. Their 2015 EP “Howl” boasts the bombastic single “Contagious,” a swathed-in-seriousness emotional purge that puts the quintet — singer Travis Hawley, guitarists Nick Fotinakes and Matt DePauw, bassist Mikel Van Kranenburg and drummer Rico […]
The new album from Honeyhoney is indeed sweetsweet, but also tarttart, hothot and smartsmart. “3,” out this week via Rounder Records from the L.A.-based duo of native Ohioan Suzanne Santo and native Bay Stater Ben Jaffe, is a Southern-fried, made-in-Nashville affair that covers a lot of turf. Santo, the singer/violist/banjo-picker, is adept as both a […]
California has a rich country music history. While it may not always or ever be at the forefront of the hip and cool, it’s been rumbling at the fringes of L.A. life for as long as there’s been booze, broken hearts and sunsets to sing about. Every once in a while someone announces a country […]
The most heartbreaking thing about Sara Lov’s vocals is … well, that we haven’t heard it since her 2011 album of cover songs, “I Already Love You.” Lov, once half of the dreamy duo Devics with pianist Dustin O’Halloran, has long held listeners rapt with her voice, a precise, emotive instrument that has sent scribes […]
The new single from Scavenger Hunt is one of those bright earworms that makes you nostalgic for the summers of your youth. Unless, of course, you’re still very youthful, in which case we suggest you revisit “Wildfire” in eight to 10 years. It’s the work of singer-songwriter Jill Lamoureux and producer Dan Mufson, who first […]
Orange County sextet Roah Summit debuted last fall with an EP of lush electronic folk, the kind of music seemingly made for major plot points in epic films. Their new single “Take Care” continues in the same deeply emotional vein — and they have a video that suits it. Directed by young filmmaker Kevin Clark, […]
L.A. classic rockers the Janks are spreading their wings — and spreading out their releases. The quartet, comprised of brothers Zachary and Dylan Zmed, Nate Light and Leon LeDoux, have been issuing a new single on the last Friday of every month this year. The wave of new songs follows up last November’s “Living in […]
Starting over can test the mettle of any creative, but working from a clean slate with a fresh perspective often yields remarkable results. And so it is with Sun Drug, the L.A. quartet of Steven Wilkin, Collin Desha, Taylor Brown and Cameron Dmytryk. They were four-fifths of Vanaprasta, whose heady 2011 album “Healthy Geometry” and […]
ISLES are a new L.A. outfit using a not-so-new formula for commercial exposure: gleaming pop combined with workaday hip-hop. The band features the vocal talents of singer Olivia May and rapper Casey Bisetti, along with Daniel Braunstein (guitar), Adam Elzarou (bass), Matt Barreca (drums) and AJK (samples). Their first single “Home Again” is a ready-for-radio […]
Since they first embarked on making music as Detective more than three years ago, the French-American duo of Guylaine Vivarat and James Greer — now going by the vowel-starved DTCV — have been as uncompromising as they have been prolific. Garage-pop, post-punk, shoegaze, noise-rock, prog-punk, new wave: The Joshua Tree-based duo can do it all, and have, […]
