There’s not a lot of data out there on the elusive and new industrial outfit called, White Car … Processing – please hold. Still processing – thank you for holding. Ah Yes. White Car presents their EP, “ No Better.” Processing: The title track “No Better” takes you to a familiar 80s industrial sequence similar […]

Neither brothers nor sisters, this Brooklyn duo creates rollicking, lazy-boned laments about days gone by. Once opener “The Curse” rattles to attention with rickety alternative-era guitars and youthful drum pats, the peg is as dead on as their Death By Audio ancestry. Core members of the collective that fostered a Brooklyn venue, effects pedal creations […]

Lyrics, vocals, drum beats, hooks, melodies, bass lines and more musical tricks are all components used to evoke emotion in the listener. Sometimes it’s based on a memory or past experience. Others, it based on the raw emotional reaction to our auditory sense. For this reviewer, stating the name Interpol pulls a smile from my […]

Okay kids, you know my favorite way to start an album review by now … (push play and the first few seconds is the first impression) well I have to say The Capstan Shafts first track “Fairweather Triumphalist” off of “Revelation Skirts” fails this test. I like the first 12 seconds, but then it explodes […]

Punk-pop over sugary hooks is the game for the Portland-based band, The Thermals. Though “Personal Life” is their fifth album, their sound harkens back to the power punk flare of bands such as (old school) Green Day or Propagandhi. For those who are in their late 20s or early 30s, the band creates an aura […]

I probably listened to !!!’s (Chk Chk Chk) new album “Strange Weather, Isn’t It? ” about five times over before writing this review and with each listen I gladly found myself puckering my lips and bobbing my head like a duck on crack as soon as their second track “The Most Certain Sure” took its […]

Incepted in 1997, Britain’s The Clientele has always successfully combined its influences into a tasteful form of pop music that has over the years been equal parts melancholy, wistful and cerebral. Its latest EP, “Minotaur,” finds the band in top form from its Byrds-esque title track to spoken word “The Green Man,” the latter of […]

You know, the organ is an instrument just not heard very often on pop albums these days. And then what’s this? No guitar?!? While this may sound like a bad polka album in the making, Fitz and the Tantrums have a style that doesn’t require the typical pop instrumentation and styling. Their throwback 60s soulful […]

Sub Pop’s post-grunge resurgence seems to be rooted in finding good jangly pop bands from a particular geographical location and signing them to a deal – take a look at some of its roster beginning with The Shins (Albuquerque) until you get to, say, Avi Buffalo (Long Beach, Calif.). The label’s Milwaukee discovery, Jaill, fits […]

With only the knowledge that Wildbirds & Peacedrums is a Swedish husband and wife duo, thoughts of a death metal White Stripes popped in my mind. Then learning that “Rivers” was originally two vinyl EP releases, now combined to one album, I became skeptical that this could be any good. Hodgepodge death metal duo might […]