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 […]
One of the most distinctive qualities about Freedom Fry is that, more than most boy/girl indie-pop duos, their songs sound like conversations, giving listeners the feeling they are eavesdropping. So it is with “The Wilder Mile,” the title track to the forthcoming EP (out next week) from Michigan-born Bruce Driscoll and Parisian Marie Seyrat. 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 […]
L.A.’s latest folk-influenced pop starlet Zella Day may not have a major release under her belt yet, but her new single “East of Eden” is a nice audio slice to tide fans over until the release of her EP. Following up her “Sweet Ophelia” 7-inch, the new track is a fresh juxtaposition of pummeling electronic […]
Tijuana Panthers’ Chad Wachtel, Phil Shaheen and Dan Michcoff and friends have some fun with the spy movie genre in the new video for “Nobo,” directed by Megan and Ashley Fenton. In a way, the Long Beach trio’s new album “Wayne Interest” (which came out in June on Innovative Leisure) is full of cloak-and-dagger – […]
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 […]
If there’s an album to lose yourself in for the week, it may as well be Hundred Waters‘ latest release “The Moon Rang Like a Bell.” The electronic art-rock quartet, who recently relocated from Gainesville, Fla. to the City of Angels, once again masters the delicate balance of precision and ethereal on songs like “Out […]
