Stars, “Backlines” – Stars offers the third track off their forthcoming album “The North” (due out Sept. 4 via ATO Records) and it’s more pop-rock than the electro-rock “The Theory of Relativity” or the shimmering “Hold On to Love When You Get It and Let Go When You Give It.” Amy Milan’s vocals serve as […]
Is everybody properly giddy over this new song from Mumford & Sons? The band last month announced its sophomore album “Babel” would arrive Sept. 24, and the brisk first single “You Will Wait” premiered on the BBC today. It sounds like what they do: gospel-inspired folk-meets-bluegrass. Sound the horns. ||| Stream: “I Will Wait” Photo […]
Sharing this song in the social media is going to feel like insider trading. “Equalizer” is new from the Blonde Names, the nom de tune of Tatiana Simonian, whose day job is director of music industry relations for Twitter. Long before that job (and gigs as a label marketing manager and music journo), Simonian was […]
Kisses continue to seduce with their embrace of 1980s-style synth-pop. Initially a surprising detour for Princeton’s Jesse Kivel (paired here with Zinzi Edmundson) when they surfaced in early 2010, Kisses displayed an uber-cool Euro sheen on its debut full-length “The Heart of the Nightlife.” There’s more where that came from. A sophomore album (promising “pulsing […]
Justin Miner credits his new musical direction to a “creative nervous breakdown.” Oh, if cracking up always yielded such fruits. Miner previously toiled in L.A.’s Fight From Above, a solid rock band that failed to distinguish itself among other outfits doing similarly straight-ahead bombast. He took a break from music, traveled, bought a tambourine, learned […]
Think Dorian Wood is a rude boy or a punk rocker? Not quite. The soundscapes of this avant-garde L.A. artist find beauty in the delicate balance between dark and light, pain and joy. His eccentric synthesis of folk, soul and experimentalism is DIY enough to make him a rebel to anyone’s ears, all while recalling […]
Words and lyrics are nice, but sometimes a picture is worth a thousand ideas. If you’re surprised by the NSFW cover art for “The Haunted Man” (out Oct. 23 on Capitol), the forthcoming album from Natasha Khan – aka Bat For Lashes – you shouldn’t be. Khan has never been one to do anything dull […]
Australian quartet Husky crafts lilting pop that trades in the same brand of acoustic serenity and aching nostalgia practiced by many of your favorite harmony-wielding folkies. This batch of pastoral grace was conceived at a small house in Melbourne, where singer-guitarist Husky Gawenda, keyboardist Gideon Preiss, bassist Evan Tweedie and drummer Luke Collins assembled some […]
It was back in April of 2011 that Francisco the Man self-released its single “Broken Arrows,” planting its 6 1/2 minutes of guitar splendor high on Buzz Bands LA’s year-end song list and raising a pertinent question: Why doesn’t the L.A. indie-rock quartet get more music out? Well, the foursome of Scotty Cantino, Néstor Romero, […]
“Kiss Me Crazy,” the latest single off Bear In Heaven‘s sophomore album “I Love You It’s Cool,” is yet more evidence that the Brooklyn trio has moved further away from the dark, droning electronic rock on 2010’s record “Beast Rest Forth Mouth.” But it hasn’t been a bad migration. Frontman Jon Philpot’s bright vocals work […]
