By putting out four successful albums, playing national tours like Warped Fest, and delivering gigantic riffs and reverberating rhythms to fans over the past 8 years, The Architects have established themselves as THE rock band of Kansas City. And this year, Midwest Music Foundation is pleased to have this four-piece group headlining Apocalypse Meow this Saturday. Today, we talk with bassist Zach Phillips and get some insight on what the group is up to. 

So apparently Prince Rama has written ten new hits to accompany the upcoming end of the world. The band has put together a pseudo-compilation album for their latest effort "Top Ten Hits of the End of the World" (released by Paw Tracks … Avey Tare’s label) set to hit the cosmos November 6th.

The two sisters Taraka and Nimai Larson have decided to cover various songs from otherwise fictional bands that highlight our pending doom in what can best be described as one of the most exciting aural acid trips you’re ready to take this year. Lead track and apocalypse anthem "Welcome to the Now World" should already be familiar to children that grew up singing this song in schools… or at least they did in this band’s parallel universe. Complete with old style electronic effects referring of the fictional computer-generated band (Hyparxia) that Prince Rama are supposedly channeling, the song produces a space-age effect hypnotic enough to help you conjure up some new Gods to pray to.

One of the most fascinating freak groups to come up in Brooklyn in quite some time, the band recently mesmerized us at their CMJ performance and will be back in NYC in December from their international tour with label-mates Animal Collective. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

Surely the youngest act to hit the CMJ stage this year, The Orwells is an Elmhurt, IL-based self-defined ‘Flower Punk’ five piece fronted by the impressively charismatic Mario Cuomo, this tall blond stick-figure who owns the stage like few are able to. Especially that early in the afternoon (2pm when I saw them). Call them perfectionists, or just really good at what they do, fact is, rarely do you see a band so well prepared to take on its crowd. With so far one album, “Remember When’ (first self-released a year ago) to their name, full of the passionate lo-fi ballads that would tend to set their effervescent, American spirit-soaked, sometimes erratic garage aesthetic right in the footsteps of the Third Man himself, they’re a definite favourite of this year’s talent quest, one we’ll have to be keeping an eye on. Oh, and if you’re curious, why not listen to Mario Cuomo rap. Sure worth your three minutes. 

With one album to their name, a second in the making, and already a sizeable fan base, EndAnd are the outsiders to keep an eye on. Thoughtfully split between polished recordings and DIY methods, their "Adventures of Fi in Space" cross the paths of bands like Husker Du, Nirvana or Queens of the Stone Age, finding on their way this tricky balance between aesthetic satisfaction, pop sensibility, and a dedication to hard rocking. Pulling through power chords and fuzzed-up weirdness with a strongly disarming sensitivity, they’ve managed to reach some unexplored confines of 90s heritage, off the beaten tracks, where everything you thought you knew just suddenly sounds a little peculiar. – See the band live at Union Hall on 11.09, read Tracy Mamoun interview with the band here.

Railbird was definitely one of the highlights of our CMJ Music Marathon. We thoroughly enjoyed the band’s show at our CMJ Electronic Stage on Thursday 10.18, when they performed their quirky and delicate songs with precision and warmth, in front of a packed room. We recently interviewed them here.