Iron Chic – Not Like This
Long Island’s Iron Chic has an amazing album called Not Like This out now. You can get it as a donation-based download here. It’s gruff but ultra-fucking-melodic pop punk that slays and that I’d recommend for fans of Latterman, Dear Landlord, and general awesomeness. Don’t wait on this as it’s easily one of my favorite (Read more…)
Jonsi – Go
I’ve loved the Icelandic group Sigur Ros for quite some time now, but was skeptical just how good frontman Jonsi’s proper solo debut, Go would be. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Go is a skitteringly gorgeous album that wraps you up in melodies that could only come from Jonsi and his angelic vocal cords. (Read more…)
Joie De Vivre – The North End
A few weeks ago I had the lucky (or unlucky depending on how you view it) fortune of meeting Brandon and Patrick from the band Joie De Vivre and having a few too many beers with them. That chance meeting made me think about the fact that I hadn’t written about their band’s album, The (Read more…)
Junior Battles – Junior Battles 7″
I was totally blown away mere seconds into the self-titled 7” from Toronto, Ontario, Canada’s Junior Battles. At their core these songs are fast-paced with catchy melodies, great vocal harmonies, solid memorable lyrics played with hearts on sleeves. Sounding like a cross-between early Fall Out Boy, The Weakerthans, and Cletus (strange, I know, but it (Read more…)
Hanalei – One Big Night
On this third full-length, Hanalei is (now again) the acoustic solo project of Brian Moss (The Wunder Years, The Ghost, Olehole) where he sometimes plays along with a laptop but sometimes alone. I actually met Brian (once) when my old band Allister played with the Wunder Years at some shithole in Colorado Springs in 1999. (Read more…)
None More Black – Icons
So the dudes in None More Black recently released a great new album on Fat Wreck Chords and I can’t stop listening to it. It is (however) a bit different than the band’s previous efforts. This new album, Icons, is a bit rougher and less easily catchy than I expected it to be. It’s a (Read more…)
RVIVR – LP
In case you didn’t know it, RVIVR is a pretty damn amazing band. On this, their first full-length, the band spits out the same sort of under-produced pop-punk that I loved on their Life Moves 7”. It’s the same sort of lovingly crappy punk I listened to as a teenager, except way way better. WAY! (Read more…)
Nomo – Invisible Cities
Being that it’s football season here in Big Ten country, I might as well write about Rich Rodriguez’s failure of a team (even if only indiretly and somewhat unrelated to the actual content of this post. What I really want to say is Nomo is a band from Ann Arbor, Michigan (which I won’t hold (Read more…)
The Reveling – 3D Radio EP
Yeah, I’m sitting here (right this minute) in West-Central Pennsylvania writing this little extra bit about how my initial draft for this post was written on June 5th of this year and is now only being posted some 5 months later. Here it is. On their 4 song 3D Radio EP, the Brooklyn based quartet (Read more…)
