There’s no right or wrong approach to songwriting: some artists find their voice in bizarre arrangements or completely wild chord progression, while others make energy or tension or even just powerful lyrics their trademark. However, there’s only one way to write rock music with mainstream potential that sounds timeless and honest, and pulling it off is not easy feat: it consists in finding a fine balance between melody, tension, character, meaning and relatability that few artists are able to strike (Tom Petty and The Cars are among our favorites). The music of Bird Streets – the solo project of Brooklyn’s John Brodeur – features these qualities. The project released the self-titled debut album this past August and was named NPR’s 2018 slingshot artist shortly thereafter. Brodeur will leave NYC for a short west coast tour at the end of January, keep an ear on him

The faint of heart (and/or ear) should avoid at all costs Rough Trade on the eve of Saturday January 12th, since three loud and aggressive local bands will grace the venue’s stage in quick succession starting at 9pm. Headliners Bambara have refined their gloomy psych rock in ever-darker and tenser directions with their latest two full lengths, while sludge rockers A Deer A Horse will be a worthy opener, sharing those same traits minus the psychedelic ingredient. Opener Gnarcissist will bring to the stage a more traditional (and fun) DIY punk with a markedly drunk and chaotic attitude. Tickets are on sale here, check out a playlist of vidoes below.

It might be the middle of winter, but the psychedelic music of Brooklyn’s Steady Sun evokes the heat daze of the hottest of seasons (in the Arizona desert). We are premiering here the band’s latest music video, a sun-soaked vision of their 2017 track Television Eyes, beautifully directed by Slack Barrett. The song’s relaxed pace allows the band to reflect on technology’s place in our lives – how it can both alienate us from the world even while providing a sense of connection to to others. Harkening back to the sophisticated psychedelia of the early ’70s (think Pink Floyd’s "Wish You Were Here"), the track is built around an arpeggioed guitar that would make Roger Waters proud, and filled by an orchestration of vintage sounding instruments and uber-dreamy vocal lines. Stream it below. – Sunny Betz

We’ll be honest with you: these days, punk revival is not a kind of music that makes us fall over ourselves. The genre, in most cases, comes across as a stale rehashing of a rudimental style that has lost its true revolutionary meaning. But… that’s just a theoretical statement that completely falls apart the moment you stumble upon a record like Flower’s self-titled EP – because real, powerful music, is stronger than trends and abstract theories about how dead a genre is. 
Flower plays unapologetic, ultra-fast hardcore punk. And since real punk is always a political statement, their record feels like a perfectly appropriate aural retribution for the people that have given us the horrifying political spectacle the US has been witnessing. The brutally explosive songs on this record should be played live in the US Congress, to express the only possible rebuttal to the farce American politics have become, as some sort of cathartic ritual that – in the best tradition of ancient Greece – will somehow purify souls through art and partying, and prepare for a new beginning. 
What’s most impressive about this band is its incredible tightness at the basis of their relentless and furious energy, something that’s truly hard to pull off from an instrumental standpoint. But it’s the convulsive and possessed high pitch vocals (reminiscent of early Pixies and Rage Against the Machine, but even more intense) that connect directly to our inner instincts, bypassing our rational filters and triggering what rock’n’roll is supposed to trigger: an incontrollable desire for rebellion.

NYC’s indie crooner Vlad Holiday at the beginning of December released new single Artifical Paradise (streaming) and announced official participation in the SXSW 2019 festival. The track is a slow burning ballad that highlights Holiday’s expressive tenor, which in this song reaches flirtacious levels of purring that would impress even the horniest of cats. And that’s kind of appropriate, since the song is a rather explicit invitation to mind blowing sex (hence the title) based on a plodding, sparse electric arrangement accentuated by a restrained brass section. NYC fans will be able to test Vlad’s magnetism in person when he’ll perform live at Mercury Lounge on January 29th.

Brooklyn’s The Sharp Shadows play a rare blend of pop-punk mixed with post-punk, two genres that are propelled by anthitetical forces (speed+melody and tension+experimentation) but that have cohabitated some records of the late ’70s – the first two XTC records and the punkier tunes by early The Police come to mind. In tracks like "Why Don’t You Do It?" and "Push Push Push" edgy and tense backing tracks are charged with the speed and energy typical of punk and resolved following pop canons, in part reminiscent of the elegant melodies of Elvis Costello. The power trio has been active since 2013 and released their latest album "Lessons" in August 2018; they will perform live at Alphaville on December 30th.

Hip hop collective Poetic Thrust, recent winner of our NYC Artist of the Month Poll, will be celebrating the release of their new EP at Elsewhere’s Zone One on 01.12. This group is among the few hip hop acts that play fully live, a genre normally relying on beats played through a turntable or an electronic device. You can listen to their 2018 single "Salty" below.

If you are stuck with the notion that emo has become the unbearably whiny expression of spoiled suburban kids, enter Boston’s Bay Faction (who recently relocated to the NYC area) and  think again. Their 2015 three-track debut EP clearly carries the genre’s DNA, but slows down its BPM by a lot, makes a discreet if not spare use of distorted guitars, and puts a lot of sincere heart in it. Those early tracks resonated with a lot of kids and gathered over a million plays on Spotify, and so did following single Pendulum, dropped in 2017. After a dragged out recording process, the band is now ready to release their debut LP Florida Guilt, a record that expands the group’s sonic palette with a more varied production, without betraying the core qualities of their music. The first single It’s Perfect, streaming below, is to date their fastest and most driven track, but still stylistically hybrid, with the inwardly tortured voice of singer James McDermott adding oozes of character to vague lyrics related to the struggles of dating. The record is already available on Spotify, and fans of Pingrove and Forth Wanderers (two other bands that are taking emo in new directions) should definitely check it out.
Don’t miss the band’s release show at Elsewhere on December 21st. – Photo by Sam Colby

Industrial rock seems to be experiencing a timid reinassaince in NYC – and that’s better than nothing, considering how much of a niche genre it is. Brooklyn quartet Zoume is blending the genre’s clangy electronic sounds and apocalyptic atmospheres with post-hardcore, metalcore, and even hip hop influences, forging an imaginative hybrid bound to become the soundtrack of anybody’s favorite nightmares. Those interested in a radical break from Christmas music should not miss their show at The Knitting Factory on December 21st.

NYC has been orphan a live music festival dedicated to emerging bands since 2015, when the CMJ Music Marathon called it quits. Notwithstanding its flaws, CMJ was an important appointment for the NYC music industry, and here at The Deli we’ve been missing it real bad. Which is why we are curious and excited to see some mainstays NYC promoters trying to build something similar, even though – at least for now – restricted to six venues in the Lower East Side/East Village area.

The fest in question, called New Colossus Festival and scheduled for March 7-10, is presented as "a new annual event taking place the weekend before SXSW […] featuring 100 bands from all over the world," and it’s organized by longtime pals Mike Bell (Lorimer Beacon), Lio Kanine (Kanine Records) & Steven Matrick (Kepler Events/Pianos). Like all events of its kind, it can be accessed via badges on sale here.

We made a compilation of the NYC artists that are currently booked to play the New Colossus, including Nicole Yun of Eternal Summers (who recently moved to NYC and has a solo album coming out) and the new project by Kip of Pains of Being Pure at Heart called The Natvral – stream it below.

Noel Heroux and Jessica Zambri, active in the NYC scene since the mid aughts, released music separately through Hooray for Earth (Noel’s first breakout project, disbanded in 2014) and Zambri (the electronic band Jessica still plays in with sister Cristi Jo) and became the two creative forces behind Mass Gothic. The two musicians share an interest for dark atmospheres and edgy arrangements. They found themselves involved in a romantic relationship that soon developed in an involved artistic collaboration, which fully bloomed in Mass Gothic’s sophomore album, entitled "I’ve Tortured You Long Enough," released earlier this year through Sub Pop records. Our sister blog Delicious Audio asked Noel to share some thoughts about the creative experience and the gear behind it, read his answers here. – Photo by Sammy Goldfien

A Brooklyn band that was born to be appreciated in the triangle of land enclosed between Manchester, Milan and Berlin, Tempers has been slowly finding recognition… exactly there. Proponents of a brand of coldwave (aka synth-post-punk) that most Americans will find unnecessarily depressing, the duo has released an excellent debut album in 2015 that – like all good records – has not stopped conquering hearts just yet (it’s called "Services"). After spending four years touring and promoting that release, the duo has finally come out with their sophomore full length, which takes their lugubrious electronic music to new levels of abstraction and intellectual exploration. Presented as "a concept album about the architecture of consumerism," the record features conversations with iconic dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and a more explorative sound that’s less influenced by the canons of the electronic new wave of the ’80s. Check out the video for single "Love at the Mall."