Start your weekend off right with music from artists featured this week on BestNewBands.com
(Oh, and happy Earth Day!)

“The Kite” – The Sound of Growing Up
Liz Livengood gave BestNewBands.com the heads-up on this Boston band’s new music video.

Liz wrote, “In my review of Drifting by The Sound Of Growing Up, I praised the fun piano pop sounds of the Boston band. I also said I’d love to see them live, which hasn’t happened yet, but here’s the next best thing: a video. I miss the old MTV days, when slickly produced videos showed me yet another side of the bands I loved. The Sound of Growing Up has made a video of “The Kite,” a song that talks about the fear we all face when growing up and forging ahead into the unknown. It’s a chance to see the band having a lot of fun, and maybe making us think a little bit. … The next time you can see The Sound Of Growing Up is on May 24 in Cambridge, MA at The Middle East Upstairs. Lucky East Coast folks!”

Read the rest of Liz’s post here.

“Morning Thought” – Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
Daniel Kohn reviewed the Detroit duo’s first album, It’s a Corporate World.

Daniel wrote, “As almost everyone knows, The Motor City has been hard by the economic downturn. However, out of the rubble has emerged a new music scene that would have surprised hard rockers like Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, Iggy Pop and Kid Rock. Never in a million years could these musicians have suspected that their hometown would be home to one of the most innovative alterna-indie-dreampop duos. That’s the best way to describe Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. Hyped by both Read Detroit Weekly and The Guardian, the duo of Josh Epstein and Daniel Zott are set to release their first album, It’s A Corporate World, after a string of highly regarded EPs.

“Although Epstein and Zott have been making music individually, this full-length is the start of something good. The album’s strength is its continuity and flow, which are able to highlight their strengths, while overshadowing some minor weakness. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. would make both of their namesakes proud, assuming they listened to and liked alterna-dream-pop.”

Read the rest of Daniel’s review here.

“High Gold” – Liturgy
Daniel Kohn recently interviewed band member Hunt Hendrix. Here’s some of their conversation:

Daniel Kohn: What different about the making of this record as opposed to the first one?
Hunter Hunt-Hendrix: The first one was pulled together very quickly and recorded even more quickly. We spent a lot more time on both the composition and the recording of this second album, and put a lot of thought to its unity as a whole.

DK: What lessons have you learned to make the writing/recording process easier this go-round?
HHH: A major thing I’ve learned is that it’s important to decide on something and then wait till it’s really complete to judge it

DK: What’s the rest of 2011 looking like? When can we expect to see the band touring in the States?
HHH: We’ll be doing a U.S. tour in July.

Read the rest of Daniel’s interview here.

“Butterfly” – Delicate Steve
“Solid Ground” – Maps & Atlases
Kelly Knapp reviewed this mind-blowing show at the Bowery Ballroom earlier this week.

Kelly wrote, “I’ve recently started paying attention to Delicate Steve, so I already learned that this was the moniker of one guy, Steve Marion, making use of lots of musical toys and effects to create entirely original instrumental compositions. I really liked everything that I’ve heard from him so far, but projects like that often translate really differently live. … I’ve never watched someone shred on a guitar so small, but Steve got more metal, classic rock, and tropical sounds out of that thing than I would have ever thought was possible. Often, he withdrew what looked like a shot glass from his pocket to play some slide guitar. At times, it literally sounded more like a kettle drum. I can’t explain why or how, but he did it. There was really so much going on between all players on stage that I almost forgot to take any photos. When I could bring myself back to reality to remember I should be capturing this, it was almost impossible because the crowd was SO into it. The majority of my photos had hands or flying hair blocking the band, but this only made me smile, because how can I really be mad about that? Good for them.

“Maps & Atlases is another great artistic endeavor to come out of Chicago. It’s rare for a contemporary band to create a sound so impressive and unique to themselves, but this band pulls it off. Largely considered a math-rock band until recently, Maps & Atlases is a very tight, technically sound ensemble. Every member of the band is extremely proficient in their part of the whole, and they manage to weave it all seamlessly together. I appreciated Maps & Atlases before I saw them, but their live show blew me (and pretty much everyone else in the crowd) away. … They ended on ‘Solid Ground,’ and then the clamoring for an encore that ensued was deafening. ‘I’m gonna cry!’ one kid yelled.

“Besides the sheer amount of technical proficiency woven into Maps & Atlases’ songs, the lyrics are something to take note of too. That and the fact that they execute all of this while dancing, rocking, moving the entire time. Basically, they are on point in every possible way, but the live setting is really where they thrive the most to showcase all of that. Even after they were off stage, the crowd barely moved. It was as if everyone was so dazed by what had just happened they could barely wrap their brains around it, let alone shuffle outside. Maps & Atlases had blown our minds.”

Read the rest of Kelly’s review here.

“Blue Blood” – Foals
“Little Lion Man” – Mumford & Sons
Claire Gallagher featured these acts in her review of Coachella: Day 2.

Claire wrote, “Foals have been my most recent obsession—so when it was finally time to sweat beneath the Mojave tent, I was beyond ready. They kicked off with the infinitely jammable “Blue Blood” from Total Life Forever, and kept the initial electric energy throughout the set. I reveled and danced like a wacky wavy inflatable arm flailing tube woman*, and absorbed every note. My only disappointment was that they didn’t play “2 Trees,” to which I would’ve broken down and cried like a baby. Watching this set, my jaw was constantly dropped, and I was and still am trying to figure out how their sound and style—rock-y yet fluid yet groovy, almost funky—is even possible to achieve (both in recording and live). When it was over, I stood still as the crowd stampeded out around me, jaw still gaping, not ready to believe it was over. It was easily my favorite set thus far, partly because Foals is just plain amazing, and partly because I didn’t think my Total Life Forever experience could get any better…

“As the sunlight finally faded and a bright full moon took the sky, Mumford and Sons’ set was constructed beneath the massive metal monster that surrounded the stage. The British rock-folk group soon appeared and began their set of banjo-infused goodness. I was mildly familiar with this album coming into the performance, and seeing it performed live gave it a new pulse for me. The emotion was much more real, the dramatic pauses felt like sad, beautiful decades, and the insanely impressive banjo plucking prompted many a dosie doe around me. My conclusion? Everyone loves a good hoe down now and then.”

Read the rest of Claire’s Coachella coverage here.

“Spinner” – Zola Jesus
Kelly Knapp previewed Zola Jesus’ upcoming show at the Bowery Ballroom this Saturday.

Kelly wrote, “Zola Jesus’ dark and haunting electronic sounds are seeping into all underground radar, and all my friends who saw her at SXSW have confirmed that it was one of their favorite shows there. Listening to her recorded songs may be more of an ambiant experience, but in her live shows she tends to jump off the stage and run around in the crowd, and that is what makes her live show most interesting. It also helps that she has had classical training and thus sang an aria or two, helping to give her voice the quality and depth you can hear in her songs.”

Read the rest of Kelly’s preview here.