Here we are, in the warmth of summer. With July commencing, most often summertime evokes a severe longing for those bittersweet romance harmonies best paired with endless nights driving around, crying out lyrics, counting the days and nights until school starts again. This season is stacked, as The Smith Westerns have dropped the very album
Two years ago, brothers Jeff and Ryan Burian moved up north from Hemet, Calif. to Portland. Like many young musicians, the City of Roses appealed to the SoCal natives because of its booming, anything goes music scene. And after listening to the duo’s debut full-length under the moniker Béisbol, it sounds like they’re fitting in
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, with the liberal outposts from the 1960s still finding cultural relevance throughout our tree covered territory, there was never any worry that folk music would die out. It’s existed on our stages and street corners for as long as I can remember. Naturally, this means you’ll find its sound
Late last year, Yoodoo Park made his debut with Explore, a seven-track EP comprising dreamy, lo-fi tunes recorded in the young artist’s garage. The haunting melodies and shoegaze-tinged instrumentation of this release quickly categorized the Japanese born Californian with other bedroom pop projects, but Park’s freshman full-length, Empire, is set to disprove that notion. Aspiring
A Constant Sea is the debut album from the Brooklyn quartet Heliotropes. Released June 18 on Manimal Vinyl, A Constant Sea is a sturdy and creative first album but moreover, it’s a remarkably dusky record that synthesizes the forces of metal, psychedelic, post-rock and just about any other type of genre which demands seriously high
Sometimes great music comes from obscure places. Other times it’s so obvious that the music is overwhelmingly amazing that impossible to put your finger on the pulse of why that’s the case. After a few years of working behind the scenes with L.A.-based producer/maestro Flying Lotus, bassist extraordinaire Thundercat (not to be confused with the
Surfer Blood might have set all future expectations a bit high for themselves with their 2010 debut album Astro Coast. The band’s immediate knack for hypnotizing hooks (“Floating Vibes” has been stuck in my head for about three years now) and a surprise cleanliness coupled with generally buzz guitars was impressive — very impressive. That
The LA-via-England singer-songwriter released her fourth album, Once I Was an Eagle, May 27 on Ribbon Music and, while I’m not one to typically be so blunt, it’s entirely wonderful. When Marling introduced her set at Seattle’s Columbia City Theater on May 15, she opened with these four tracks and, before the album was out,
Let us extend Splashh a warm welcoming to the world of full-length albums. The East London quartet released Comfort, its debut album, on June 4 (in the U.S.; September 2 in the UK and Europe) on Kanine/Luv Luv Luv Records. Comfort reads like a debut album, with all the blooming energy and fresh innovation that
It’s a usual story. A bunch of young dudes grow up in New York City, form a rock band. They’re influenced by a lot of cool bands, and they want to have a cool name that they can make a cool logo out of. NYC is full of bands like that, and since the city