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Top 10 January 8, 2012
Top 10 January 8, 2012
CreaturoS – CreaturoS
From the beautiful and capaciously twisted minds and hands of Cambridge’s DOOMSTAR! (RIP!), Spenser Gralla and Noah Bond have kept the razor sharp ability to write a mean hook that ephemerates into psych oblivion just as the climax hits. Then everything explodes into an ever building series of plateaus.. I have not heard anything this fun, hooky and acidic in rock and roll since the Flaming Lips‘ Hit to Death in the Future Head . “CreaturoS” is a fun, dirty slice of kaleidoscopic rock n roll trippiness. A total success!
Bad Cop – Animal
Intrepid, always surprising and gnarly as fuck, Nashville’s Bad Cop are a rock and roll machine that never seems to stop touring or writing badass, obtuse songs like this dark offering from their new EP on Prince Cook. Garage punk fire that draws in some touches of Motown while seeming more “now” than next week!
Shorty Boy-Boy – <3 new yng cute <3
Philadelphia – based Shorty Boy-Boy is a catchy fun irreverent party. Snappin’ with youth and lulz aplenty in clever songwriting that oddly enough echos a far less morose East River Pipe …. to my ears, at least. Fun, and I can bet the live experience is even more so!
EVL – I’ll Keep Mine
One of Windsor, Ontario’s youngest and hungriest band of feral punx is EVL, who recorded some of their songs live from the soot-stained bowels of the legendary punk and metal venue The Coach & Horses. Being from Windsor needs no other cred to play hardcore and I’ve watched this band grow more sure of every lick over the last few years, where now they lay their own knives into the skin of some touchstone bands of olde, like Bad Brains and Misfits. EVL fuckin’ rules!
Maica Mia – Sparcity Blues
From a forthcoming 12” that I’m eager to get my ears on, Maica Mia is a Molasses -slow and darkly crystalline new project from Montrealers Maica and Jonny Paradise, part of a crop of songwriters that trod a brazen new path between 80s SF Bay area Paisly Underground psych and late 90s epically sad Montreal post-rock pathos.
The Soupcans – Nice Day
Toronto’s trashiest psych/no-fi bluespunk monstrousities The Soupcans were prolific in 2011, releasing a 12” and the stellar (and awesomely named) Vintage Pizza Party Cassette CD back in August. They’ve not so much toned down the completely in the red rawness of their earlier releases, but chiseled a few more gnarly features into the rock n roll clamour. I wanna be a Soupcan!
Foghorn Leghorn – Hotel Califuckyou
They might not know it, but these kids are channeling some serious Ralizées Dénudées vibes, but without being uber-serious… or Japanese. Recorded in a tiny DIY knuckle of infamy in the borough of St-Henri, the Horny Culture demos are some fun, lo-fi stoner freejamz.
∞ Shadow Box ∞ – Spin, Mary, Spin
Y’know, it’s refreshing to see kids from the rural outposts of Canada’s vast wasteland pilgriming here to Montreal and doing their own thing, instead of trying to enter the vast and vapid slipstream of twee that’s assaulted our fair island’s shores for the last five or so. Instead, these mysterious sprouts originally from Thunder Bay are following the muse down to a dark, broken path of idiosyncratic vision. I’m a bit of a loss for easy comparison and that is such a good thing. The music rings true and points to great things on the horizon. When they inevitably change their name (there are 100s of “Shadow box“es out there!) and hit their stride I’ve no doubt their unique, darkly psychedelic and understated raw sound will coalesce into great music with real heft.
Spin, Mary, Spin by ∞ Shadow Box ∞Shahman – Rare Breed
Fresh band from Ottawa, Ontario who stitch together some June of ’44 mathy complexity with some screamy Action Park-era Shellac. Dirgy, dark and compelling and huge sounding… Shahman have a clutch of rad tunes on their bandcamp and a forthcoming 7” on Concession Recs that would be a treat for any turntable.
Bovachevo – Slide Rattlesnake Run
These amazing dudes from Worcester Mass have finally put up their 2010 EP on bandcamp. The brain searing intensity of the recordings are yet outdone by the fierce, knife edge performances. What else can I say that the music won’t? Bovachevo destroys.
