Everybody, the debut release from Ja Prawn on vosotros, combines disturbingly authentic renditions of late ’70s and early ’80s movie sci-fi soundtracks, classic synth sounds, and lo-fi bent oddities, in a mischievously playful EP. ...
Las Rubias Del Norte’s third album, Ziguala, seems to combine familiar Latin American elements, such as Spanish guitar, creaking underlying percussion, and clicking castanets, with a contemporary indie rock feel. The band’s Spanish name...
I didn’t really know what to expect when The Wonder Years’ album The Upsides wound up in my inbox. For one thing, my only exposure to the band had been on the Kid Dynamite tribute record, “Carry the Torch,” in which they did...
“It’s the first day of spring/ And my life is starting over again,” sings Charles Fink in the title opener of The First Days Of Spring, maybe setting up an optimistic mood for the rest of the album if it weren’t for the...
What’s in a name? Well, if you have a great name like, let’s say, The Beatles or Fucked Up, it can lead you a place of legend, hearsay, and an always welcome presence on Fox TV. This Time Next Year apes their name from an old song by The...
With Setting The Paces, BOAT has written an album that slots into my demographic with an almost startling precision. Did you spend your mid-to-late-twenties in the Pacific Northwest? How about a wannabe Northwest town like Madison, Wisconsin? If you...
The past few years of mellow European albums show the poorly-executed experimental turn that melodic pop has taken. Replacing the simple, guitar-accompanied vocals of bands like Death Cab for Cutie are the synthesized sounds of Phoenix and nameless...
If Aim And Ignite, the debut album by fun., was a character in a play, it would be the type of person that exaggerates every emotion. When that person is sad, he/she is really down in the dumps. When the person is happy, he/she skips around and does...