The Romantic Comedy is certainly a fitting name for the new project (by members of Brooklyn’s The Great American Novel), whose debut EP “Let’s Be Sad Together” was released in late 2016. The EP features coming of age songs about wasting time ("Ugh"), falling head over heels for someone ("The Thirst") and wanting someone you can’t have ("Let’s Be Sad Together," streaming below). Like in the movies the band’s moniker is inspired by, these struggles are approached with an upbeat optimism, which musically speaking means "power pop." It looks like the quintet will be headed to Austin in March for the SXSW music festival.

This artist submitted music for coverage here.

The side project of Gary Canino of the band Rips, Dark Tea plays a brand of introverted folk-pop that blends the soothing simplicity of The Shins with the playfulness of some of Syd Barrett solo albums. ‘Providence Sky,’ featuring the sugar-coated addition of Alexandra Savior‘s vocals, is their only truly finalized track to date, but sounds very promising to our ears – stream it below. You can check out a bunch of demos on their Soundcloud profile, and see the band live at Baby’s All Right on February 15th.

Our Best of Austin 2017 poll has begun last week with the Electronic category and, after you-the-people cast your vote, we have the results to share with you!

Overall Poll winner (Jurors’ vote + Readers’ vote): Mobley

Readers’ Poll Winner (Readers’ Vote only): Mr. Kitty

We are superproud of these two Austin acts, that offer very different varieties of electronic music.

The full list of nominees for our Best of Austin 2017 Electronic Category can be found under the streaming tracks.

	Mr. Kitty		88%	186 votes
	Capyac		0%	0 votes
	Mobley		1%	3 votes
	SURVIVE		1%	4 votes
	Missio		0%	0 votes
	Eyelid Kid		3%	8 votes
	Thor & Friends		0%	2 votes
	NAM		2%	6 votes

If the ground were to one day crack open, and the sounds of Tartarus began to seep out of the earth, I’d like to imagine the hellish cacophony would sound a bit like King Woman. The San Francisco-based four-piece crafts the sort of doom metal that seems to herald the bridging of our dimension and the underworld. Kristina Esfandiari’s vocals envelop the band’s tracks with the precision of a hushed, siren song, while the band–composed of Colin Gallagher on guitar, Peter Arensdorf on bass and Joey Raygoza on drums–punctuate her ethereal singing with fuzzy, dark soundscapes and angular riffs. On the heels of their soon-to-be-released album, Created in the Image of Suffering, Collin and Peter were kind enough to share their current pedal set ups, and the techniques they used to get the visceral sounds heard on their album. – Olivia Sisinni

Read the interview here, and fon’t miss the band live at their new album release party at Starline Social Club on February 17.

Ladies and Gents,

We continue our Best of NYC Poll for Emerging Artists with the "Roots Music" category, you can see (and vote for) any of the 14 finalist here.

Lots of great talent, check them all out!

The Folks at The Deli

Our Best of NYC 2017 poll has begun last week with the Garage/Slack Rock category and, after you-the-people cast your vote, we have the results to share with you!

Overall Poll winner (Jurors vote + Readers’ vote): Baby Shakes

Readers’ Poll Winner (Readers’ Vote only): Stuyedeyed

We are superproud of these two NYC bands, that offer high octane garage rock inspired to completely different periods of the history of this genre. Stuyedeyed, with their insanely tense, obsessive tracks and screamed vocals, refer back to the proto-punk days of The Stooges, full of madness and debauchery – you can see them live at Alphaville on February 18th.

Baby Shakes, on the other hand, find inspiration in the melodic garage rock of NYC’s own The Ramones, infusing ultra-fun surf and doo-wop elements in it. Baby Shakes will be playing W’Burg Hall of Music on February 14th and then embark on a Japan tour in March.  

Honorable mentions go to Navy Gangs (second in the overall chart) and Thick (third in the Reader’s poll). The full list of nominees can be found under the streaming tracks.

About five years ago, NYC’s Ms Mr (now on an indefinite hiatus) were one of the first acts to kickstart the soul music reinassaince – single ‘Hurricane’ quite literally took the scene by storm, at the time. Lizzy Plapinger, the band’s singer (and co-founder of label Neon Gold), is now returning with a solo, self released and self produced project called LPX. First single "Tightrope" and press photos conjure up an image and sound a lot more aggressive than the one her break out band got us accustomed to: "I’m here to assert myself – harder, louder, and stronger – as a woman and an artist" – she states in the single’s press release. 

It must be said that Brooklyn slack rockers Active Bird Community – a band we’ve been covering since 2013, when they submitted their music for coverage through our digital submission page – belongs to the "Spotify 1 percent." Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with that, not at all! It just means that they have at least one song with over one million plays on everybody’s least-favorite-but-unavoidable-music-streaming-platform-that-underpays-musicians. The guys actually have two songs above that numeric landmark, with "Pick Me Apart" ticking just above two millions! To impress our readers, we are streaming them both below, together with latest single ‘Dead Legs’ from their brand new album ‘Stick Around‘ – trickle down sonics!!! Perhaps their popularity is due, at least in part, to the fact that these guys have been perfecting their sound since they were 11 years old – there’s nothing like the bond and chemistry of friendship to keep a rock band united through the years! If you dig their ’90s influenced sound, you may want to get tickets now for their show at Asbury Park’s The Saint on February 23rd, before they sell out. – Jocelyn Huggler

Released in July of 2016, The Misters‘ single “Off My Mind (In the Summertime),” with its upbeat tempo and catchy, carefree melodies, is a stranger to NYC’s January, notwithstanding the fact that this year it’s been remarkably mild… With a well-mannered voice that exudes precocious wisdom, lead singer Michael Nitting (pictured) recites "…cause this cold keeps pouring down, but I won’t let it bring me down" – a good reminder to all of us to keep on plowing through life, notwithstanding the bothersome events we can’t control related to weather (or… politics). The Misters play live on February 21st at Pianos. – Jocelyn Huggler

Born from two ribs of The Kickdrums, Fake Guns is the Manhattan based, electro pop/rock project of Alex Fitts and Chris Wall. They only have two songs streaming on their Soundcloud page (plus two remixes for singles by Mainland and Swimm), but it sounds like there will be more coming soon – we are streaming them both below. Fake Guns will be performing live at The Mercury Lounge on February 7th.

A noteworthy NYC artist we completely missed in 2016 (and 2015! – probably because she seems to tour the experimental circuit, rather than the rock/DIY one) is Queens based Eartheater, the solo project of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Alexandra Drewchin. Propelled by impressive confidence and multi-disciplinary talent (she is also a dancer), Alexandra creates music that’s experimental and textural at heart and, in its most accessible expressions, could be described as a more abstract version of Cocteau Twins, bordering on Dead Can Dance’s arcane desolation. Streaming video for 2015 single ‘Homonyms’ (from LP ‘Metalepsis‘) reveals a bold and articulate artist blessed by the gift of uniqueness. Eartheater’s shows have often an original coregraphy (yep, she does that too…) and recently caught the attention of The Wire, which is why we have the feeling that those who dig art that’s "out there" might enjoy her upcoming show at The Kitchen on February 9th.

P.S. Clever name! is it "Earth Eater" or "Ear Theater"?