An unlikely combination, the music of Brooklyn piano-based rock group Dash Hammerstein sounds sort of like putting the Silver Jews into a bar with Wings and The Violent Femmes and admiring what drunken mess you’ve caused.

‘134340 Pluto’ (streaming below), from their latest EP ‘Old Country,’ opens like just another night at the bar, until the hook comes in and all kinds of surprising melodic journeys are encountered along the way. The night proceeds from there through five tracks, each with their own unique ways to declare the night is won, especially in album closer ‘Black Wax.’ The band swings their way around a piano like a Gibson SG lit up by twin Marshall stacks, and are just as pretty and danceable at once. Sober or not, this band will compliment any late night evenings. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

This band submitted their music for coverage here.

What do you get when you combine a spoken word artist with the guitarist/singer from NYC metal band Goes Cube? Not what you’d expect (not sure whatever exactly you’re expecting anyway…). Distant Correspondent merges these widely differing talents into a very unlikely scenario: There’s a world of hazy moodiness here, on the level of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s swirling shoegazery: thick guitars and gorgeously arranged harmonies.

When David Obuchowski and Emily Gray met up after anonymously listening to each other’s music for years, the sum they created is truly bigger than the parts. We are looking forward to their debut dropping later this year. Preview the haunting track ‘Listen’ below to hear some of Emily Gray’s spoken word, and look forward to their self-titled debut album due out October 22nd. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

Not only did the six members of Truth and Salvage Co. have enough wits about them to move from LA to Hendersonville, they even named their sophomore album "Pick Me Up." While the West Coast was the perfect ground to foster relationships with Chris Robinson and the Avett Brothers, a strong fan base was growing in the South for their down home sound and cheeky, heartfelt harmonies. There are two chances this Tuesday to benefit from their new proximity: 6pm for a free in-store performance at Grimey’s, and 9pm for their show at Exit/In.  

Here’s the album first single "Appalachian Hilltop" – LA could never fully appreciate the ukulele, anyway. – Terra James-Jura

“Goodbye to All That” (streaming below), the new single by Brooklyn art-rock ensemble Cold Blood Club, could be taken as an adieu to their previous sound — nervy, chorus-heavy dynamics based around the husky alto of Kendra Jones. This time around, Tom Staurt handles the leads in a soaring new romantic swoon that feels vibrant and tragic, the perfect vehicle for delivering the painful theme of letting one thing go in the quest for personal redemption. The track dips and rises around shimmering guitars and a tribal rhythm, reminding that the train of life goes in one direction: Forward. Catch Cold Blood Club at the Bowery Ballroom with Future Bible Heroes (featuring Stephen Merritt of the Magnetic Fields) and Luxury Liners on July 23.–Brian Chidester. – Brian Chidester

As surprising as it may seem, this summer hasn’t handed us enough beach-oriented rock yet. I hear a lot of mopey new wave, but not enough rocking tributes to the surf. Well… the wait is finally over. Fishdoctor‘s latest release, ‘Atlantic,’ gives you all the warm waves you need, amid a dire, guitar-soaked warning about the Atlantic Ocean ‘swallowing you whole.’

Listen to the exclusive track premiered below, and catch them at Piano’s next weekend on Sat, July 27th. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

EMEFE commands a huge presence with 11 members on stage and just about every instrument you can remember from Middle School Band in full sparkling representation. Javier Ramos spared no time getting the audience involved and made you feel like you were right at home listening to a group of friends – spectacularly talented friends – perform in your living room.

Bassist Doug Berns drives the band, closely resembling gritty 60s vocalist Joe Cocker with a curly millennial afro and intrinsic, spiritual bass lines, leading the band’s melodic grooves from center stage with his eyes closed, mouthing every sound he so carefully delivers from his instrument. Doug’s idiosyncratic movements somehow conduct the band to rise and fall, sonically and physically, stringing together group dance moves as they drop it to the floor.

EMEFE’s spectacular instrumentation, arrangements and communal vocal style harkens back to seminal influence Fela Kuti and the Afrobeat movement he pioneered. Their warm sound and soothing fluidity were a perfect compliment to the warm sticky temperatures and beading sweaty bodies that moved around all night until EMEFE ended their set with a groovy bang. – Ed Guardaro

Friday July 19th marked the first day of this year’s Music Frees All Festival with Cuddle Magic and EMEFE heading up late night sets at Rockwood Music Hall and a slew of performers earlier in the night at the Bowery Electric.

The Deli has a soft spot for Cuddle Magic. With all six members sporting identical circular sunglasses, the band played a dynamic set with haunting harmonies between lead singer Kristin Slip and bassist/guitarist Ben Davis. Cole Kamen-Green and Dave Flaherty moved together in harmony banging, trumpetingand squeezing out sounds from a plethora of different instruments that many have likened to a “quiet storm” of percussion and background instrumentation.

Watching Cuddle Magic perform is like seeing an organic synthesis of a high-fi recording. The band has impeccable volume and expression control over both their electric and acoustic instruments and each member juggles with a few different sounds during the course of their sets.

You can see Cuddle Magic on July 27 at Cameo Gallery. – Ed Guardaro

We added this song to The Deli’s playlist of Best songs by emerging NYC artists – check it out!

Allen Thompson is a little bit Neil Young, a little Warren Zevon, and as American as rusty Chevys, bonfires, and Polaroids of your dad in cutoffs that are way too short. How can the piano-driven plea to a higher power ‘Everybody Knows’ not grab that little sentimental part of your bitter, hypertrophic heart? Go pretend you’re a human with real emotions and see him at the Basement tonight. – Terra James-Jura

Before finding her voice as an indie-pop songstress, Laura Stevenson had to sift through years of musical transformations and a diverse set of influences to reach her current, delicate signature sound. With her perfect mix of fervent, satisfying pop melodies and unpredictable sense of surprise, Laura Stevenson has gone in a few years from NYC scene spectator to NYC scene hero, headlining Bowery Ballroom and other major local venues. See her on Wednesday July 24 solo at Brooklyn Bowl and read the full Devon Antonetti’s feature from our print issue here.

The aggressive grunge punk trio known as Low Fat Getting High smacks your airwaves with a sound that is bursting with energy, catchy choruses and rough edges.  Formed in Brooklyn in 2011, the band’s live presence has helped them make a name for themselves, and now they feel that they’ve captured that sort of flare on their newest 4-song EP titled Bad Yoga which was released just yesterday via Money Fire Records.  Listen to the first track from the EP titled “Better Better Worse” below. It has tremendous replay value, so loop away! – Michael Haskoor (@Tweetskoor)

In 2011 Luke Rathborne charmed the crap out of us with folky single "Dog Years," and it’s good to see the man has been keeping at it. The upcoming album "SOFT" (scheduled for a September release) is now presented as a group effort: "Luke" was dropped from the act’s name, and bio notes introduce them as ‘a band formed by Luke Rathborne & Darren Will’ – although Darren is still missing from the press shots. 

From the preview single "Last Forgiven" (streaming) the project seems to have evolved in a poppier and more textural direction, without entirely losing the singer songwriter’s signature, in a metamorphoses that could be compared to the one undertaken by Luke Temple when he formed Here We Go Magic. What’s more important, the quality of the songwriting and the production are top notch here, so if the rest of the record is as good as this summery single, Rathborne’s music might keep company to a lot of people in the forseeable future.

We added this song to The Deli’s playlist of Best songs by emerging NYC artists – check it out!

Any band that can maneuver this swiftly between stone cold hard rock, and dreamy shoegaze deserves to have a hot rod pasted to the cover of their recent album. In the music of The Lost Patrol, a NYC act that has already four full lengths under its belt, there’s a shared appreciation for both mystery and muscle that comes through the whole record.

From the straight-ahead attack of rocker ‘See You in Hell’ (streaming) to the charming seduction of ‘Play with FIre’ and the dream pop evanescence of ‘All Tomorrow’s Promises,’ this is an elastic rock group unafraid to mix an alchemy of rock history together in unlikely matrimony. Check out the new LP ‘Driven’ here, and if you are around Butler, NJ, you can catch these guys live at Architekt on July 20. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets).

This band submitted their music for coverage here.