Hailing from Montclair, NJ, electric quartet Pinegrove emanates a sound inextricably linked to the lazy tunes produced by the slacker rock bands of the ’90s, but still absolutely original and compelling. The band has been around since the late aughts, releasing since then a series of album and mixtapes that showcase original songwriting and deep understanding of dynamics, like in our favorite track "Namesake" (streaming below). You’ll get a chance to see them live at Palisades tomorrow (04.24).
It doesn’t take much effort to figure out a power pop band when you see one. The name just has to click, and with The Wild Young Hearts, you immediately know what you’re going to get: rugged guitar riffs, plenty to hooks, and a seemingly unending cheerfulness. The tracks off the trio’s latest full length, Feel Good, flow from one song to the next with a proper dosage of intensity, vintage-inspired rock n’ roll anthems that will never become obsolete. There’s a good amount of disaffected ballads, of course, an empowered sensitivity that couteracts those amped-up moments of release.
After a short period in Savannah, Georgia, Creepoid returns home this evening headlining Underground Arts, and we collectively welcome them with open arms! The perpetually touring four-piece have a new LP Cemetery Highrise Slum scheduled for release on June 23 via Collect Records. One finds him/herself soothingly absorbed in the band’s alluring psych-rock cloud, swaying to the motion as the music effortlessly shifts in a heavier murky adrenaline-releasing grunge direction. Creepoid continuously finds a way to create multi-textured sounds that appear smooth yet retain a pleasant grit. Shari Vari dusk-creeping electronic/percussive endeavor, also known as Void Vision, keeps one on alert as the ever-present bounce of motion and eerie synth provide a sense of unavoidable tension, and the partially muted vocals increase the suspense. The trio of Gondola fully embraces the heavy guitar throttling – searing, sweat-dripping, psych-tinged, battle-tested, hard rock, letting the instruments open up and speak their minds. Dead Heavens the new project led by the legendary Walter Schreifels (Youth of Today, Guerilla Biscuits) rounds out the makings of a memorable evening. Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St., 8pm, $10, 21+ – Michael Colavita
Tonight is the kickoff to WXPN‘s inaugural Key Fest, which will be camped out for the next three nights at MilkBoy Philly. They’ll be showcasing a variety of local acts from different genres throughout the event. This evening, you’ll find a more indie rock/pop punk-tinged lineup with Hurry, Cayetana, Commonwealth Choir, and Slingshot Dakota. Tomorrow night mellows out with their folk/singer-songwriter segment featuring The Lawsuits, Rosu Lup, and Dylan Jane. And finally, Saturday night will provide some booty shaking with hip-hop/R&B performers Tiani Victoria, The Bul Bey, Brielle, and Jacqueline Constance. (BTW: Take note – looks like headliner STS dropped off the bill.) Where do your tastes lie? MilkBoy Philly, 1100 Chestnut St., 8pm, $10-$12, 21+ – H.M. Kauffman
Brooklyn’s own Chancius Drzewuck is a guy who keeps at it, and isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty – specifically, on the platforms of the NYC subway, busking. After years of struggling with his early solo releases and with his previous band Automatic Duo, the man seems to be finding his own audience, after gathering a series of positive reviews and interest for his new project simply called Chancius, which mixes new wave sensibility with his rather dead pan vocals, partly reminiscent of early Brian Eno. His latest and second release, entitled "Bando," came out about a year ago, and it’s filled with gentle songs full of peculiar melodies and early ’80s attitude. Check out the record’s opener "Hold On."
Boston’s favorite electro-pop duo Miss Geo recently unveiled their newest EP, Shapes, and unsurprisingly, it’s definitely worth your time–trust me. Even if you don’t trust me, listen to it–it’ll be the best twenty minutes you spend all month. It may only be four tracks long, but Shapes crams enough synths, pop hooks and dance-worthy drum beats to keep you dancing for the next month.
"Dancing After Dark" was the standout track in this collection. The infectious synth and smooth, almost sultry vocals grab your attention and lead you through to the end of the song–kind of like when you’re out at a club and you catch someone giving you “the eyes” from the other side of the room, drawing you closer for some inexplicable reason.
For more info about Miss Geo, check out their website.
Crisis Arm is really loud. I saw them at a house show once. Everyone who didn’t wear earplugs seemed to be thrown into a stupor. The ones who did had trouble getting to the door. The sound guy broke down in tears. It was beautiful.
This homegrown fuzz outfit from Riverside County has been responsible for widening fault lines and caving in cochleas since 2009. Most of the members live and raise 10 cats together in Hemet, and share a strong love for anime and video games; RPG fans might trace their name to a weapon in the legendary Square title Chrono Trigger. The band’s humble beginnings eventually lead to underground acclaim with their 2014 LP Rend (via Mayfly Records): a collection of diffuse, lo-fi dreamscapes that merged sounds of My Bloody Valentine, loveliescrushing, and Spacemen 3. On stage, Crisis Arm roars with the strength of several fullstack amps, channeling their melancholic guitars through infinite muff and reverb pedals. In the past several years, Crisis Arm has played out DIY shows like the Blood Orange Infoshop (Riverside), dA Center For The Arts (Pomona), Dynamite Vinyl (Fresno), and White Oak Music and Arts (Van Nuys).
Crisis Arm will be touring California for the next few weeks with their other half, San Francisco punk/gaze project Airs. This Sunday, they’re playing a Part Time Punks show at The Echo with Creepers, a psychgaze band cofounded by members of Deafheaven, and veteran LA psych/post-punkers Dirt Dress ($8a/$10d). Listen below to "resemblance," the first song off Rend. – Ryan Mo
Beach Slang spent a day at Converse Rubber Tracks in Brooklyn, while on tour with Cursive. They ended up recording a cover of The Psychedelic Furs’s "Love My Way" with help on keys from Jordan Geiger. You can stream and download the track for free below.
Well y’all, the bell rung on the epic bout that was our last Artist of the Month poll about a week ago, and heavyweight hip-hoppers LNS Crew found themselves the last men standing in the ring to take the title. Many congrats to LNS on their win!
For this next bout, we’ve got a hip-hopless roster for the first time in a while, with a singer-songwriter-producer, two psych bands and some damn fine Austin punk slugging it out between the virtual ropes for the completely imaginary but nonetheless glorious Deli Austin Weekly Champion Belt.
We’ll do a deeper post on each of these guys over the course of the contest, but for now, here’s a little on our current contenders and why they particularly caught our ear this month:
Abram Shook
Sound: Indie singer-songwriter with quite high production value
Qualifications: Lovely little single “Understood” and its equally pleasurable music video were just released as a preview to Shook’s sophomore album and are making noise around town, earning Shook KUTX’s Artist of the Month. Perhaps more importantly, recent photos of Shook reveal that he is almost definitely Austin’s premier wizard in training, what with that peppery hair/beard combo.
The Halfways
Sound: Psych pop straight out of the era that birthed it, but with a dab of the new post-Fleet Foxes psych sound
Qualifications: A string of recent shows coupled to new output from the band, who has been doing hard work in the studio. Track “I Don’t Mind” bodes quite well for the rest of the new stuff coming from this group, which has certainly become a pillar of the ATX psych scene in the last couple of years.
THREE BONES
Sound: Psych blues with soul to spare and a riveting lead singer/lead guitarist duo in Victoria de Benedicty and Dalt Jacob
Qualifications: Only one of the oddest, strongest, 60s-est music video ever to come out of the local psych scene, plus the promise of more music and some big-time shows (including one with fellow nominees The Halfways at Scoot Inn not long ago). The vid for triumphant, soul-packed track “Hold On to Ya” is exactly what you want out of retro psych, in that its influences are obvious (that projection is pure 60s), but it’s very self-aware and thoroughly fun. These dudes also just won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest for a Valentine’s Day love song for other new track “Love is the Only Way,” which is some pretty major shit.
Xetas
Sound: Punch-em-up, no stops, unfuckwitable contemporary punk
Qualifications: This is a band everyone in Austin should know, even though they themselves probably don’t give a shit if you do or don’t. This is as close as Austin gets to a supergroup, with each member an undoubted veteran of the Austin music thing, but even though we’d nominate these guys just about anytime for the quality shit they’ve consistently been producing in their relatively short time together, they particularly make the cut for this month’s poll on the utter, pounding strength of their new single “The Point,” released as a lead up to soon-to-come LP “The Redeemer.” They also just wrapped one big-ass, quick-ass tour all over the nation, which is more’n enough to get them the nod in our poll this month.
Change is one of the secrets of inspirations. That’s definitely something Brooklyn band (via eastern Europe) The Clox knows, considering how different and how inspired their newest single "Lullaby" sounds. While their previous releases offered a sound landing somewhere between alt rock and new wave, "Lullaby" welcomes music influences that sound Arabic to us (we are not expert in the field), and absorbs them in a western electronic rock setting. You can see the trio live at Rough Trade on Saturday April 25th.
Marrying ethereal vocal arrangements with classical and ambient influences, and relying on a drumless soundscape where the only rhythm is created by vocal loops and the occasional piano chord, Brooklyn artist GABI has created with "Sympathy" a record of rare intensity and beauty. The album release will be celebrated tonight (04.22) with a show at the Le Poisson Rouge.
DC’s Mittenfields are FINALLY set to release their long awaited full length Optimists. I was blessed with an early listen and was beyond pleased with maturity and variety of the songwriting and production. Fans of Mittenfields wont be surprised if I say there’s a lot of 80’s-90’s indie-rock sound in it, but what they might not be expecting is all the places the album goes in and around the genre.
Just in the second song, "We’ve Become Numbers," there’s a bass groove with the "angular" guitars, which fuse into bright layered guitars/pedals (that remind one that U2 was pretty cool in the beginning), ultimately crashing into an intense surf-guitar covered shoegaze drone. All complementary sounds in a coherent song. The further into the album one goes, the more variety one hears, both within and across songs. Fuzzy and clean, mathy stuff, poppy stuff, gentle songsmithing, hard rocking. All tight, cool shit. And Dave Mann’s voice is pretty good too.
