Following up their smooth R&B lead single “Tell Me Anything,” L.A. quartet Air Life releases “Every Now & Then.” Turning up the funk, incorporating a time lapse and dipping in to hip-hop with some help from Senay Kenfe (the Natives), the new track once again features Taylor Dexter’s enthusiastic vocals, slick percussion from Brijesh Pandya, […]
Welsh alt-rockers Catfish and the Bottlemen have earned quite the rabid fan base across the pond, where they performed a sold-out U.K. tour before their debut album “The Balcony” was even released. It reached No. 10 on the charts there, the quartet’s guitar-driven bombast recalling any number of would-be next-big-things from the U.K. who’ve achieved […]
L.A.-based singer-songwriter Eddie Cohn fashions intimate songs with stadium-sized emotions, and his new album “Guarantee Me Love” (out Tuesday) takes his craft to the next level. The album, Cohn’s third, is a lush affair, boasting string arrangements on piano-based compositions that milk every ounce of gravitas out of romance without coming off as overbearing, despite […]
L.A. duo Magic Bronson’s steeped-in-cool fusion of synth-pop, rock and hip-hop is more than a little bit addictive, and you don’t know whether to credit Matthew Lieberman’s intoxicating bass lines or Michael Nicastro’s sometimes-sexy, sometimes-stoned vocals. They’ve hit upon something that straddles two or three musical worlds, and their forthcoming full-length debut “Wildlife” (out Nov. […]
Few indie-pop revivals surprised us more than the reformation of the Primitives, one of the U.K. originals from the 1980s. They gave the world “Crash” – you remember “Crash,” right? (and if you don’t you might mutter something like, “Ohmygawd, that sounds like half the female-fronted bands in Echo Park”) – and released three albums between […]
No percussion. No boys. L.A. duo Girlpool, composed of members Cleo Tucker (guitar) and Harmony Tividad (bass), write garage-rock that is simple as it gets, especially considering the fact they met at the Smell, one of L.A.’s noisiest DIY venues. Their new single “Blah Blah Blah” consists of lyrics your 7-year-old niece can remember (and […]
Singer-songwriter Henry Wolfe’s 2011 debut album “Linda Vista” earned wide praise for songcraft reminiscent of 1970s luminaries, and for its wryly phrased themes – the duality of emotional topography vs. physical place, the tug-of-war between romanticism and reality. His new song “Encino” dwells in the same world: Here we are, after all, “in a town where […]
The Dead Ships’ bluesy, blaring garage-rock has earned the L.A. trio comparisons to bands ranging from the Black Keys (the blues) and the Strokes (the garage). As evidenced by their new single “Canyon,” though, it’s just as likely that the blood running through the veins of singer-guitarist Devlin McCluskey and bandmates Alex Moore and Christopher […]
Twenty-one-year-old SoCal native Ryn Weaver became virtually an overnight sensation after posting her song “OctaHate” to Soundcloud this summer. The tune, which was produced by Michael Angelakos (of Passion Pit), Cashmere Cat, Benny Blanco and co-written by Weaver and Charli XCX, racked up 30,000 streams in the first day due to its sparkling yet non-traditional […]
The edgy power-pop of distaff quartet the Electrets will taste like comfort food for fans of the Ramones, the Go-Go’s and three-minute radio singles from 1981. It’s all done with proper cheekiness, of course. The band’s “Misfit” EP, released in August, draws outside the lines with some wonky keyboards, but mostly the debut from the […]
