The forthcoming debut EP from Castro will send you diving into the back of your closet for that old black jacket, if you were present during the heyday of the post-punk/New Wave movement that the L.A. quartet mines so deliciously. The band came together only a few months ago, with singer-guitarists Vincent Venturella and Jack […]
With its relentless cool, Stax horns and boy/girl charisma, Caught a Ghost breathed some new life into old soul when its debut full-length “Human Nature” was released in April. Besides being good for a steamy night in the club, Caught a Ghost’s songs have found their way into numerous TV shows and movies. And speaking […]
A little fuzzier and edgier than before but just as appealing as their previous dance numbers, White Arrows‘ latest single “We Can’t Ever Die” is a pummeling electro-rock anthem with an accessibly shout-along chorus. That catchy hook doesn’t come without layers of guitar and synths though. There’s a gnarly guitar solo toward in there dancing […]
LA Font may have been born in the wrong decade but there are few who can perfectly soundtrack a flannel flashback like these guys can. Like their pals Speedy Ortiz, the rock quartet continues to churn out ’90s indie rock tunes one after another. “Who cares about memories?” sings lead vocalist Danny Bobbe in the […]
Kiev’s genre-transcending full-length “Falling Bough Wisdom Teeth,” released last fall, exudes a powerful otherworldly quality, as if Orange County-based band of sophisticates give in at times to the urge to simply space out. In director Scott Peters, the quintet has found a equally adventurous visual artist. The video for “Be Gone Dull Age” finds the […]
Just when you think you’re heard every dialect of the language of guitar, along comes a guy like Blake Mills to make the instrument speak in tongues. We say “a guy like” in jest, of course; Blake has few peers in the rock world these days. None other than Eric Clapton recently said of the […]
If you’re need of summer tunes that boast more than just a sticky chorus then L.A.-based Florals might have just what you need. The trio of Stephanie Marie Rick, Ryan Koch and Joey Singleton write fluid soundscapes where trip-hop, electronica and psychdelia all collide for textures that seem to swirl in slow motion despite the […]
The most remarkable quality about “Simple,” the debut album out today from Los Angeles quintet Nightmare and the Cat, is how the colliding sensibilities of brothers Django and Sam Stewart find some sort of sonic detente. When the sons of Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) and Siobhan Fahey (Bananarama) relinquished their respective solo projects and got together […]
Twice through “A Common Theme,” the debut album by Strangeheart, you don’t want to curse the L.A. quartet for adding to the vast ocean of formulaic synth-pop dominating the indie marketplace so much as you just want to curse the formula. To their credit, the foursome of Jeff Thompson, Brandon Queen, James Longstreet and Michael […]
Yoodoo Park has graduated from mischief to mayhem, at least sonically. The singer-guitarist, working under the name GRMLN, emerged in 2012 with an EP of retro-pop that, compared to his forthcoming sophomore album “Soon Away” (due Sept. 16 on Carpark Records), sounds like a batch of demos. In between was last year’s full-length “Empire,” an […]
