Comprised of Dutch italo disco producers Alden Tyrell and Mr. Pauli with vocalist Zarkoff, Sumerian Fleet finally releases their powerful debut full-length after four years of collaboration and a pair of EPs.
For the second spoken word album by Canadian poet, Brian Brett, producer Andy Meyers constructed backing tracks from samples of his late ’70s/early ’80s (and reformed as of 2008) Toronto proto-art punk band, The Scenics, to create a dark, visceral backdrop for Brett’s words.
Rada’s an Israeli-born Ethiopian singer who’s based in Tel Aviv, and this self-titled debut LP follows her 2013 “Life Happens” EP. With twelve strong tunes, Ester Rada is convincing, confident soul music with an edge.
Back in the ’80s, Death of Samantha dominated Cleveland, OH’s underground rock scene with their off-kilter brand of rock’n‘roll fueled by bizarro live shows and a twisted sense of humor.
Colour is a strong, and consistently fine release by a band with obviously a lot more great things to come.
As a core of nerds know, twenty-first century prog rock takes inspiration from more than just Rush, Yes and Dream Theater.
Songwriter, Donovan Quinn, returns alongside longtime associate Glenn Donaldson, for the first Skygreen Leopards album since 2009 entitled Family Crimes.
After twenty-six years of philosophy and theoretical physics, Steve Weinstein finally returns to music with his first album since 1987’s Walkin’ by the Light of the Moon.
On their new album Life in Static, the Salt Lake City quartet craft an alternate universe where alternative/pop punk never really left the mainstream charts at all, ball bearing necklaces and lip rips never went out of style, and Scott Raynor never left Blink 182.
Thirty-four years after their stellar debut album, Rockin’ At Ground Zero, Los Angeles punk rock icons, The Gears, finally return with their followup, a perfect sequel to the legendary LP that defined them for so long.
If you were to take Bowie and Kraftwerk, and throw in a classical background as well as some modern tastes, you may have the weird brainchild that is this instrumental album.
18 months after their debut LP, Big Cats Can Swim, Athens, GA’s Eureka California have slimmed down to a bassless duo for their second collection of fuzzy, in-the-red songs.
Beautifully polished, dense, and carefully paced and planned, this single forty-four minute song-album is a grand and ambitious slice of progressive synth pop.
Rising from the wreckage of San Francisco punk band, The Jack Saints, Hornss erupt with volcanic ferocity, boldly announcing their existence with a debut album that sheds the confines of two-minute trash rock in favor of slower tempos and outright heaviness.
Though most of China’s underground music seems to come from Shanghai, the country’s capital, Beijing, has its own burgeoning scene. Now, two of the city’s foremost experimental electronic musicians come together for a second split release.
On his first full-length, multi-instrumentalist Suereth’s vivacious, ear-tickling ambient touches and hooky, new wave-inspired pop sense drew me in.
Raised by a single mother who worked in a psychiatric hospital, and in a home filled with schizophrenics and manic depressives, it’s this kind of atmosphere and reality that comes through in every aspect of Wilde’s music.
Comprised of famed producer Butch Vig and Phil Davis from Fire Town and brothers Frank and Pete Anderson from Call Me Bwana, The Emperors of Wyoming finally release their debut album domestically with three tracks not on the original UK release.
In anticipation of their planned demise, Pairs teams up with fellow Shanghai ex-pat Adam McRae, aka Reykjavictim, for a second-to-last recording that finds the expanded duo building off the electronic experimentation of Your Feet Touch Ground, A Carousel and heading deep into psychedelic territory.
Disconnect marries the two sides of his session personality, as the record comes with a progressive rock soul but a mainstream rock-friendly outlook.
Greenleaf started out as a side project for various Swedish stoner and hard rock musicians – a busman’s holiday for members of Dozer, Lowrider, Truckfighters and Demon Cleaner. At this point, however, the band has outlasted many of its seedpods, and gotten better with every record as well.
It seems the speakers of the stereo can barely contain these songs at times, making Libertine a truly powerful document not just for Silkworm but also for first wave indie rock.
Goodbye Birdcage—a reference to leaving Toronto for New York— is a fitting reference because it sounds here like Frisch flew out of a birdcage and into the legendary Brill Building.
Earnestly reissued by Paradise of Bachelors and produced by Peter Eden (Donovan, Bill Fay), Trout Steel eloquently connects brit folk to free jazz with ease and originality.
On her ninth studio album and seventh recorded by Jeff Stuart Saltzman, Portland, OR’s Rachel Taylor Brown explores the meaning of “family,” from a strict nuclear meaning to a broader sense relating to community, religion and duty.
The covers here are largely unpolished and raw, chugging along at a ferocious pace, and Doncker’s vocals get as close as anyone can to capturing the raw intensity within Wolf’s voice.
For its fifth album, the Athens-born/Nashville-bred trio decided to eschew extraneous effluvia and do things the old-fashioned way: write some good songs and record ‘em live from the floor.
Flagstaff, AZ isn’t exactly known for its thriving music scene, though somehow DC transplants Wilson Getchell and Robert Keane have managed to make one all their own with Wall-Eyed, a quartet that combines ’90s alternative rock with folk-rock Americana and Southwestern desert mystery for a unique sound that encapsulates the entirety of their vision.
Every time a band releases a new album, it proclaims the new work its best so far. For Buffalo Killers, that claim is absolutely right.
Former members of Los Angeles’ defunct, but beloved, Aberdeen reunite for a new band that continues the jangly indie pop sound while drawing heavily from the ’80s.
Since their blistering debut, This Is What Your Mind Imagines (HHBTM), two years ago, Muuy Biien have honed their craft and expanded their sound while remaining true to their hardcore punk and ambient noise roots.
To fully understand Random Order’s sound, imagine an alternate universe where The Cramps watched James Bond films instead of B-horror movies.
After their startling debut, Light Up Gold, and the puzzling Tally All the Things That You Broke EP that followed, Parquet Courts are back with their second full length Sunbathing Animal.
The Blue Angel Lounge continues to move further away from its psychedelic roots on A Sea of Trees.
Featuring politically-and-socially-heavy lyrics, Lovesick Saints give their listeners enough feedback and distortion to please just about every kind of punk.
Basically I’d rank the songs according to how much of the heavier guitar sound of Belong they jettison, not because I wanted that to happen, but because Berman seems to have needed it.
With the newest folk revival well upon us, it’s rare that any of it is actually good, and it’s even rarer to find it along with the heart and soul of Matt Townsend and The Wonder of the World.
Seth Goodman is unlike anyone else today. His project The Grand Undoing is releasing his new album White Space Flavors and Parties On TV, wherein Goodman combines artists such as David Bowie and The Damned for a truly original and wild ride.
Trouble finds them casting ever further afield from the string band tradition, as well as folding in such previously untested elements as electric guitar and drums.
In short, this is one of 2014’s best albums and perhaps La Sera’s best work yet.
Ready Never’s sound aligns with modern EDM, but their lyrics often slyly subvert everything, even poking fun of those probably dancing along to their own music.
The careful pop production makes this album a much easier listen, and may even distract from what he’s really saying but it’s likely it would have been too heavy of a record without it. It’s heavy stuff, but this is about as honest as it gets these days.
After packing away his longtime project Frank Smith, Austin by way of Boston songwriter A. Sinclair, arrives umarred and anew with Pretty Girls.
Since Calla‘s seemingly indefinite hiatus in 2007, frontman Aurelio Valle dropped off the musical radar, save a few film soundtracks here and there.
On their second release, Brooklyn’s Flutronix push the boundaries of soul music by incorporating elements of jazz, electronic music, hip-hop and funk into their unique vision.
Basquiat is a spiritually and politically charged record, infused with an unparalleled energy courtesy of lead singer Nicholai La Barrie’s poetic delivery verging on hip-hop.
As Grandma Sparrow, Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone) explores the fun and silliness of children’s albums through lavish orchestration and sound collage, creating a debut full-length full of smiles, laughter and psychedelia.
