Fool’s Gold, the dozen-member collective featuring, among others, singer-songwriter Luke Top and members of Foreign Born, releases its self-titled debut album next week on IAMSOUND Records, and, yes, it’s every bit as fun as this video, which just premiered on Pitchfork TV, for the single “Surprise Hotel.” Director Matthew Lessner takes the song and projects […]
Has it really been 25 years since “West End Girls?” Pet Shop Boys return to L.A.,” their 1oth album, “Yes”(which came out in April), having certified that Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are still trying to push the envelope a bit, even if their electro feels a bit safe in an era of Dangerous Kids […]
It was 2007: A little group named Silversun Pickups had a song called “Lazy Eye” climbing the charts; the Airborne Toxic Event were just another new band with an unruly name; and Dim Mak seemed like a pretty cool little label on which to put out a record. And L.A. quartet the Deadly Syndrome released […]
You probably have to be of a – ahem – certain age to remember Miracle Legion, the Connecticut college-rock band (1984-97), whose quavering jangle-pop got a lot of comparisons to R.E.M., or Polaris, the band also fronted by singer Mark Mulcahy that did the music for the ’90s Nickelodeon program “The Adventures of Pete & […]
Permission to be excited about the new Manic Street Preachers album? Thank you. The band’s “Journal for Plague Lovers” is built on lyrics from a notebook left behind by the Manics’ former guitarist Richey Edwards, who disappeared in 1995 on the eve of the Welshmen’s U.S. tour and has never been found. The U.K. press […]
With its cerebral eloquence, maze-like song structures and insistent atmospherics, the music of Australian quintet Dappled Cities is not exactly Pop 101. It reminds me of the widescreen romanticism of Britpop bands such as Suede and Gene, though without as many hooks. The band’s third album, “Zounds” is out this week on Dangerbird Records, and […]
The Malloys-directed video for the new Silversun Pickups single “Substitution” gives us a game of musical chairs, at the Burbank Moose Lodge, played by ladies from the casting call for the new “Melrose Place.” Nice enough, but … “Substitution”? Are the powers-that-pick-singles holding back “There’s No Secrets This Year” or “The Royal We” for the […]
Ah, the fine line between being homeless and being red-carpet celebrities. Are we to deduce that being an indie-rock quartet is the midpoint? That’s what I get from Simon Cardoza’s video for Death to Anders’ “Camera Lens,” the highpoint of the L.A. quartet’s 2008 album “Fictitious Business.” Anybody else notice that frontman Rob Danson’s guitar […]
[Happy 09-09-09. It’s International Beatles Day, as well as the Eurhythmic Dave Stewart’s birthday. Somewhere in there should be a big celebration ….] It’s a huge week for L.A. electro-noise quartet HEALTH, who released their new album “Get Color” (Lovepump United) and played opening slots on the Nine Inch Nails farewell tour. Tonight the foursome […]
Along with a penchant for combining elements of this decade’s hitmakers (think Franz Ferdinand, the Killers and the Bravery) into one explosive rock package, the four guys in Los Angeles quartet Saint Motel have a sense of humor. “We tried to get married in a chapel in Las Vegas,” drummer Greg Erwin says, before frontman […]
