For a band from Boston, Louder My Dear sound suspiciously like London in the late 70s. More specifically, LMD sound like late-period The Jam. With his Paul Weller-esque drawl, I expect leader David Grabowski to break into “That’s Entertainment” at any moment. What a welcome surprise.

Much of What’s The Matter With You, Rock? is acoustic-based indie rock, which makes sense when you consider that the bulk of the record was written by Grabowski before the band ever formed. Though every song gets the full-band treatment, you can hear the bedroom roots in every track.

WTHWYR is surprisingly well produced for a debut release on a tiny indie label (Midriff Records). Subtle electronics coupled with occasional horns and strings make the tracks pop. Any one of these songs could hold its own on any progressively-minded radio station alongside the current indie rock playlist.

With ballads like American Standard and Little Boat and poppy rockers like Two Cars and Clamshack, WTHWYR has the variety to match any self-respecting music fan’s tastes.

–George Dow

For a band that formed in November of 2010, recorded their first sessions in December and released them to the world in February of 2011, Il Abanico’s self-released debut EP, Crossing Colors is a surprisingly fully-realized affair.

The core of Il Abanico are native Columbians Juliana Ronderos and Nicolas Losada who met in Boston (Juliana is a recent Berklee grad). Their music is a refreshing conglomerate of worldly rhythms, indie rock guitars, and lightly accented vocals. The sound is at once familiar and exotic, combining for a sprightly, whimsical treat of an EP that sounds fantastic on the back porch on a warm summer evening.

The pair is playing around town throughout the summer. They will be headlining the Deli Magazine NE show Thursday, July 14 at PA’s Lounge, along with Tan Vampires, Pack of Morleys and Melt.

–George Dow

Last night, Rhode Island natives Deer Tick played a concert on a boat that cruised around Boston harbor. The set up was awful:  the guitars sounded tinny and the drum set was not mic’d well—and the band already had to compete with the open air on the top deck and low rumble of the ancient boat motor. Plus there was no stage on deck, so the only people who could actually see the band were those that had staked out spots early, or else had enough chutzpah to push through the tight crowd. But alas, the gods of concert ruination failed miserably, as nobody in the crowd seemed to care about any of those detracting factors.  Instead, the positive aspects of the evening won out easily: it was an almost embarrassingly perfect summer night, the sun was setting magnificently behind the city skyline, the opening band, Aunt Martha, was a hit with the crowd, and the beers were reasonably priced. The prevailing mood: totally pumped.

Deer Tick is not a low-fi band by any means– if they’re anything, they’re gritty—which definitely helped their efforts to overcome the crappy boat acoustics. They came off as a band that can successfully play any concert situation, if nothing else because of John McCauley’s highly distinctive singing voice and the underlying quality of his/their songwriting. The fact that the crowd was mostly comprised of well-lubricated die-hards that sang along to nearly every song didn’t hurt either.

The band rolled out some new material—truly new, as a few songs stumped everyone—presumably to be released on an LP sometime soon. (Note: if any fans had been concerned that the band was “going soft” since the ballad-heavy Black Dirt Sessions, know that at least one of the new tracks is a straight up hard rocker like they’ve never done before, and it kicks ass). But aside from the handful of new tracks, the band played an unsurprising but substantial set of favorites from their first three LPs, and at least one of the Nirvana covers that they are wont to pull out.  As usual, they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

In all: a highly successful show, sound quality be damned.

–Alexander Pinto