The debut album from L.A. trio George Glass harks back to the days when indie-rock was not so self-obsessed, when it didn’t fret so much about being nice, when rawness was less an affectation than a code. Not that “Welcome Home” (out March 12 on vinyl/digital) isn’t drop-dead pretty in places. The trio of Nicholas […]
More than seven years after they first played beneath the locally famous “Salvation” sign, Cold War Kids returned to that familiar berth on Wednesday night, seeking a spark of renewal as the release of their fourth album “Dear Miss Lonelyhearts” approaches April 2. Of course, both Cold War Kids and the sign have moved on […]
Rival Sons are one of those enigmas – how can a southern California-bred band, so exceedingly competent at what they do, enjoy huge acclaim seemingly everywhere except their home turf? (See also: Vintage Trouble.) To read their press clippings from the U.K. and Canada, the Long Beach quartet of singer Jay Buchanan, guitarist Scott Holiday, […]
The vocals of Suzanne May cover a lot of topography on Dark Furs’ self-titled EP – the higher elevations reached by some of the 4AD singers we used to love, the deeper places of conflicted emotions and insistent longing. In concert with the the understated guitar work of Chad Phillipps (and now the drumming of […]
The music of L.A. duo Night Club emanates from the dark corners of the 1980s, those ostensibly dangerous places that still provide unsafe harbor today for undergrounders with certain special interests. All their synth-and-sin is the brainchild of DJ/producer Mark Brooks, the ex-guitarist for punk-rockers Warlock Pinchers who has done music videos (for the Melvins […]
Jimmy Vincent is recognized these days for his various acting gigs – he’s the guy with the falcon, for one – but back in the day he was an indie-rock explorer with a fetish for gorgeous, ambient drone. In the mid-Aughts, Vincent played in a duo, then a trio, called In Waves, whose goth-inspired compositions […]
It is with extreme caution that we acknowledge this Hallmark holiday, but if anybody can get us in the Feb Fourteen Feeling, it’s Meiko. An alternate version of her song “Stuck on You” (from last year’s album “The Bright Side”) appears on Paste magazine’s Valentine’s Day sampler, titled “Half and Half.” That’s “half love songs […]
Back in November of 2011, the Driscoll siblings, Bruce and Erica – doing business as Blondfire – unveiled a candy-coated video for what was then their seemingly surefire hit-in-waiting “Where the Kids Are.” Since then, the band signed with Warner, tightened the song a little bit, landed it in a TV commercial for Honda and […]
We’re pretty sure there’s a big vault filled with catchy choruses somewhere that only certain people can access. Does it require a deal with the devil? A vowel-less password? Certain fashionable attire? Beat Club barged in somehow; when we introduced the L.A. trio last June, we had only a demo of “Something Better” (we’ve now […]
The mind is a powerful thing, right? The subjects of Western Scene’s “testing” in the video for the band’s single “Listening” take it to another place. The song is the first single by lab-coasted conspirators Tom Pritchard and Jason Burkhart, whose explorations in electro-tinted indie-rock began last year. The idea for the video originated with […]
