Usually, when you hear “boy” and “band” in the same sentence, the image that comes to mind is a group of teenage lads with similar-looking outfits and finely coiffed hairstyles dancing and crooning to a sea of screaming prepubescent girls.
One thought unlikely to cross your mind is that of two European women standing on stage, playing guitars and churning out some very catchy indie-pop to a decidedly unisex audience.
And that’s what makes the band, BOY, so intriguing. Consisting of singer Valeska Steiner (Switzerland) and bassist Sonja Glass (Germany), the duo has been gaining a lot of steam recently following its first tour of the States, which included a stop at SXSW last month.
The group, which formed in 2007, dropped its debut album, Mutual Friends, in Germany in 2011 and the UK in June 2012. It didn’t receive an official release in the U.S. until this past February, which means their hit song, “Little Numbers”, deserves to receive some love on end-of-the year lists.
On first listen, BOY‘s vocals sound very similar to those of Feist. But after repeated spins, Steiner’s voice becomes more distinct, with hints of Suzanne Vega and Imogen Heap popping up on occasion. And Glass comes in to offer harmony, adding complexity throughout.
While the above song is the standout, there are several notable tracks here, including “Oh Boy”, “This Is the Beginning”, “Waitress”, “Drive Darling” and “July”.
Considering the fact that the band is just starting to gain traction stateside, it seems primed for a major breakthrough within the next year or so.
Chances are, if you’ve ever heard of the band, Black Prairie, you know that it consists of several members of The Decemberists. And that’s pretty much where the similarities end.
Anyone seeking out Black Prairie and expecting to hear a slightly skewed version of the Portland indie gods that begat them are in for a rude awakening.
That’s not to say you won’t hear the occasional accordion or guitar line and be reminded of Colin Meloy’s crew. The problem is, those are the only sounds that the two bands share.
With Meloy absent from this project, Black Prairie is sorely lacking in the vocals department. Their debut album, 2010’s Feast of the Hunter’s Moon, was almost completely bereft of vocals.
In their place, the five-piece band churns out a form of bluegrass music that has a strong Appalachian feel, but also includes several other influences.
Last year’s follow-up, A Tear in the Eye is a Wound in the Heart, was more accessible, as only six of the 16 tracks were instrumental. On the rest of the album, the vocals were provided by Annalisa Tornfelt of Bearfoot and The Woolwines.
The strongest track, and the one that first introduced me to the band, is “Rock of Ages”.
I worried that it might be the only decent song on the disc, but there are a few more, such as “Nowhere, Massachusetts”, “Richard Manuel” and “Lay Me Down in Tennessee”.
Considering the progress the group has made between its first two albums, I’m not yet ready to write off Black Prairie. Hopefully, they continue to enhance their music vocally and build on their potential on albums to come.
Many well-known bands released highly anticipated albums in the past month or so, and the theme seemed to be about toning things down.
Now, depending upon the band, that could mean veering toward a calmer sound (Band of Horses, The Gaslight Anthem), softening an electro vibe (The Helio Sequence, Two Door Cinema Club), or nothing at all, since you can’t really get any more toned down than The XX already were.
Band of Horses
I might as well start with the album I had been anticipating the most. After a substantial ascension on their first two albums, Band of Horses took a bit of a dip on 2010’s Infinite Arms.
As it turns out, that was just a sign of things to come. Their latest, Mirage Rock, is aptly titled as it’s less an indie-rock album and something closer to alt-country.
That’s not entirely true, but on several tracks you can hear the band’s slow progression toward a more folk/country sound.
The Gaslight Anthem
Possibly the best album among the five here is the latest from The Gaslight Anthem. Maybe it’s just because I had seen them in person recently, but there’s really no filler on Handwritten.
Continuing the shift away from their punkier roots, these Jersey boys churn out more solid indie-rock, highlighted by such songs as “Keepsake” and “’45′”.
One noticeable difference here is that they throw in a few change-ups along the way with some slower, softer songs. So much so, that you almost think you’re listening to a different band.
The Helio Sequence
I wasn’t sure if I’d ever hear a new Helio Sequence album again. Not because I thought they were breaking up. It had been awhile since their last release and I’d mostly stopped caring about them. But when I saw that Negotiations was out, I figured I’d add it to the rotation.
The band, which is known for having an evolving sound, continued that trend since its last full-length album dropped in 2008.
The last time we saw The Helio Sequence, they were churning out indie electro-pop that was incredibly catchy. Now, they’ve slowed things down considerably and added some more complex layers.
They’re starting to sound like a retro version of Band of Horses. Actually, they’ve kinda leapfrogged peak-era BoH and are heading toward the contemporary version.
Two Door Cinema Club
I’ll always have an interesting story of how I first discovered Two Door Cinema Club. And their first album will always be a favorite. But I don’t know if they’ll ever be able to recapture that lightning in a bottle.
Their latest, Beacon, definitely has some good stuff on it — including “Sleep Alone”, “Next Year” and “Handshake” — but it’s not the same start-to-finish gem.
On this one, you won’t find the catchy electro beats on every track like the previous offering. But they’re there in spurts.
The XX
I was not an early adopter of The XX. I avoided them for the first several months of their highly buzzed infancy. But I eventually came around and fell in love with their debut album. So much so, that I was both eager and nervous about the eventual follow-up.
Thankfully, like all of the above albums, Coexist, is in no ways a bad recording. But it’s admittedly not as good as the original.
There aren’t any obvious hits, but there is still plenty of good music to relax to.
Filed under: A, B, F, H, T, W — assman41 @ 4:26 am
The last few months, it’s been difficult to find reliable websites to download music for free. The old standbys, such as MegaUpload, MediaFire and FileTube, have either been shut down by the government or simply don’t return any worthwhile results.
Rather than download RAR and ZIP files, I’d been forced go the torrent route and hope that Vuze would have the albums I was looking for. But that’s generally hit or miss.
But a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon my savior — Plixid.com. Not only does this site provide reliable links to albums, it’s also become an invaluable source for discovering new music.
The site adds one album every 15 minutes. They cover numerous genres and include a lot of new stuff — but there’s also plenty of old albums.
Instead of sifting through everything, I stick to the Indie/Post-Rock/Post-Punk feed and have already found numerous gems. The highlight so far was The Darlingtons, who I featured in last week’s post. But there’s been enough good stuff to keep me busy.
Here are the standouts from the past few weeks:
Air Traffic Controller
Immediately at the start of “Hurry Hurry”, the opening track the album, Nordo, I figured Air Traffic Controller had to be a side project for one of the dudes from They Might Be Giants. You cannot listen to that song and think of TMBG’s “Birdhouse In Your Soul”.
But as the album plays on, the similarities die down and are replaced with some rather catchy tunes. But in the way that one fan’s “catchy” is another fan’s “annoying.”
With some quirky songs about “Field of Dreams” and “Star Wars”, this group keeps things light while still churning out some solid tunes.
Heavenly Beat
When he decided to try his hand at the whole solo thing, John Pena decided not to stray too far from his bread and butter.
Pena has taken the electro-dream pop he helped create as the bassist for Beach Fossils and jazzed it up, infusing it with a new level of complexity.
The songs on the recently released Talent are the kind of dream pop catnip that could lull someone to sleep. But there is also a whole other layer of electro-pop that makes the music more engaging. It’s this dichotomy that makes every track so enjoyable.
Factories
If you’re anything like me, you’ll be humming “It’ll Be Alright” for at least a couple of days after your first hear it via Factories’ debut album, Together.
The second track on the disc, this song is a perfect example of the heights this band can reach when its lyrics live up to the standard set forth by the sonic electro beats that permeate throughout.
The rest of the album is pretty solid, with such notable songs as “Canada”, “Calypso”, “Kamikaze”, “Pressure”, “No One Noticed Me But You” and the title track.
Here’s one reason you may feel a little apprehensive using Plixid.com. Apparently, Heat Waves, the debut full-length release from Brainstorm, isn’t officially out until Oct. 2. Meanwhile, I’ve been enjoying it for the past couple of weeks.
Oh well. I’m glad I was able to hear it early. The album is definitely solid, filled with catchy indie rock-pop ditties. But that description does not do these songs justice.
This Portland trio has an intoxicating mix of influences that work so well together — kinda like Vampire Weekend, except the two bands really don’t sound anything alike.
The indie gods giveth, and the indie gods taketh away.
Shortly after downloading a few tracks by the group, Trespassers William, I’ve come to find out that they are disbanding. The September release of Cast, a collection of B-sides and rarities, will be the final output of the Seattle group.
After three full-length albums and two EPs, the group’s two main members — Anna-Lynne Williams and Matt Brown — have decided to focus on their solo projects.
From what little I’ve heard of the group’s music, I know that it will surely be missed.
A lot of times, a band’s first big single stands as a beacon of things to come. Fans can latch on to that catchy song and expect to hear a similar sound on the rest of the album.
But it doesn’t always happen that way. Sometimes, a band’s big hit sounds nothing like the rest of the album.
Imagine if someone had first discovered Green Day by hearing “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”. Said person would be rather surprised, and possibly displeased, after listening to the rest of Nimrod.
That’s kinda the situation with Baby Darling Doll Face Honey, the 2009 debut from English alt-rock trio Band of Skulls. Its most recognizable song is “Light of the Morning”, which was not released as a single, but has been featured in commercials and movies.
While the song is pretty solid, it doesn’t mesh with many other tracks on the album — except maybe “Death By Diamonds and Pearls” and “I Know What I Am”. If you had only listened to that, you’d think Band of Skulls was nothing more than a derivative of the White Stripes.
But delve deeper and you’ll discover a band that has a lot more going on. In addition to their killer riffs, Russell Marsden and Emma Richardson do a great job backing up each other on vocals. And Matt Hayward’s drumming ties everything together.
Other strong songs on the debut disc include “Fires”, “Honest” and “Patterns”.
The group takes its melodic, blues rock to a slightly higher level on its latest release, Sweet Sour, which came out in February of this year. Rather than just churning out straight-forward rock, the Skulls soften it, in a similar manner that Silversun Pickups have mastered.
The top songs here are “Bruises” and “Lay My Head Down”, the latter of which is slowed down considerably and becomes something of a heavy ballad.
Other solid entries include the title track, “Wanderluster”, “Hometowns” and “Lies”.
One of the great things about maintaining this blog is that it forces me to listen to discover new bands. But, when my time is a premium and I’m only listening to new stuff, that means I have to delay listening to new releases from bands I already know and love.
Recently, I addressed that issue by downloading a slew of new releases from already-established artists.
Here are my thoughts on a handful of them.
Best Coast – The Only Place
Considering how lo-fi their debut album was, the craftsmanship on this sophomore release was totally unexpected. Easily one of the top five releases so far this year.
The band takes its surf-rock sound and adds more of a twang. Bethany Cosentino’s vocals are reminiscent to those of Neko Case — but obviously not as amazing, since that’d be impossible.
The standout songs here include the title track, “The Only Place” and “Up All Night”, respectively, and “Let’s Go Home”.
Beach House – Bloom
You’d think after four albums, this band’s sound would get old. On the contrary, these Baltimore-based shoegazers just keep bringin’ it. Not necessarily one of the year’s best, but still a great listen.
Some of the better tracks were “Other People” and “New Year”.
Great Lake Swimmers – New Wild Everywhere
It feels like it’s been forever since this Toronto group put out a new album. In actuality, it was only 2009 when they released Lost Channels. The new album picks up right where the last one left off. Lots of good, slow indie-folk.
There aren’t any major standouts such as “Pulling On a Line”, but “The Great Exhale” was pretty solid.
Ladyhawke – Anxiety
While I wasn’t a very big fan of Ladyhawke’s self-titled debut as a whole, it did at least have a few really great songs. The same cannot be said for their follow-up, which is pretty much unremarkable from start to finish. I gave 1 star to the track, “Cellophane”, but that might’ve been out of pity more than anything.
(Sorry about the sped-up video. It’s the best I could find.)
Hey, look. It’s a male-female indie-pop duo harmonizing together over sparse, dreamy guitars while singing about alienation and unrequited love.
How revolutionary!
OK, so Big Deal’s formula isn’t exactly innovative. But that doesn’t make their music any less captivating.
The London-based duo of Alice Costelloe, a Brit, and Kacey Underwood, an American expatriate, have drawn comparisons to Wye Oak, Beach House and The XX.
There is no filler among the 12 tracks on their recently released debut, Lights Out. With an acoustic guitar accompanied by a fuzzed-out electric axe, the duo puts forth some solid shoegazy pop that works well both as a main course or simply as background noise.
In addition to the above “Chair”, a few other tracks that stood out were “Swoon” and “Talk”.
While you relax to the sounds of Big Deal, be sure to check out their interesting backstory.
I’m generally not a big fan of the solo singer-songwriter genre. I mean, there are a lot of great artists out there, but, for the most part, I like songs that have more going for them than just vocals and one or two instruments.
That being said, I was mildly surprised by how much I enjoyed Barchords, the recent sophomore release by Bahamas — aka Afie Jurvanen.
Jurvanen, who hails from Barrie, Ontario, does his best to channel the indie-folk vibe of such contemporaries as Conor Oberst and M. Ward.
The above song, along with other tracks such as “Time and Time Again”, “Be My Witness” and “Where You Go”, does a good job of continuing a tone of soulfoul, heart-on-his-sleeve folk-rock.
The best track on the album is probably the opener, “Lost in the Light”. It’s the most complex song on here and conjures up a number of other artists — especially the Dawes-like chorus.
Bahamas has definitely matured as an artist since his 2009 debut, Pink Strat. On that album, Jurvanen’s vocals sounded a lot like Chris Martin — that is, if you took the Coldplay lead singer and turned him into a slow-grooving, indie-folk solo artist.
The standouts from that album include “Hockey Teeth”, the slightly harder, bluesier “Try, Tried, Trying” and “Whole, Wide, World”, the Wreckless Eric cover.
You can hear that last one, as well as a few others, at Bahamas’ MySpace page.
While I have never read any of the Twilight books, and vow to never watch any of the movies, I have to admit one positive thing about the franchise — the musical director certainly knows what she’s doing.
That woman, Alexandra Patsavas, has been in charge of compiling songs for all four of the movie soundtracks to date, and, so far, she’s done a bang-up job, having convinced a slew of great indie and pop bands to produce songs for the movies.
The soundtrack for the latest installment — with the unbearably long title, “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1” — was released in November 2011. The list of acts isn’t quite as impressive as past discs, but one song has stood out so far.
“I Didn’t Mean It” by The Belle Brigade has slowly been getting more and more airplay on radio stations. And for good reason.
I first heard the song a few weeks ago on my favorite local station (WGCS 91.1 FM “The Globe”) well before I knew about its connection to the movie soundtrack.
The song was strong enough that I had to find out more about the band. The group consists of siblings Barbara and Ethan Gruska. The Los Angelenos from a family with strong ties to the music and entertainment industries.
After overcoming their sibling rivalry, the pair a formed band in 2008 and released a self-titled debut in April 2011.
The above song is the second track from the album. It’s also a great table-setter for the rest of the disc, as it perfectly highlights the band’s strong Fleetwood Mac influences.
The album is full of quality songs, including other standouts such as “Losers”, “Lucky Guy”, “Rusted Wheel” and “My Goodness”.
Considering how much they’ve already done in such a short period of time, The Belle Brigade looks like a band that has a very bright future. They will be in Chicago soon to open for Good Old War — a show that I very much want to attend.
I recently had a couple of consecutive days off and nothing planned, so I decided to devote my time to devouring a bunch of new music. I sifted through various blogs I had bookmarked and came across one that is run by a person in Australia. At And Pluck Your Strings, I found a “Best of 2011 So Far” post from July, so I figured I’d check it out.
Turns out, there was a lot of great stuff included there, including a number of quality bands from Down Under that I probably would never have heard of otherwise. Here are three that I found worthy of downloading, plus a bonus track from another Aussie group.
Big Scary
Of all the bands I listened to on the blog, the one I’m most excited about is Big Scary.
The duo of Tom Iansek and Jo Syme came together in 2006 and has put out several EPs, including a four-pack last year named after each of the seasons. Those were compiled into a release, appropriately named The Big Scary Four Seasons.
Last month, the group released its first proper full-length album, Vacation. It starts off very strong with such solid tracks as “Gladiator”, “Leaving Home” and “Mix Tape”.
Other than “Falling Away”, the eighth of the 10 tracks, everything else is filler, but it’s at least above-average filler.
Judging by this release, Big Scary should be making some noise on the international scene very soon.
Also, I noted on their website that they are set to place at SXSW next year. One more reason — as if I actually required any more — to make a return trip to Austin in March.
Boy & Bear
Speaking of SXSW, unbeknownst to me, the band Boy & Bear were part of the festivities last year. I did not see them, but I did apparently listen to, and like, one of their songs during my preparation for the festival.
Vocally, the group sounds a lot like The Fray, with a little bit of The Avett Brothers mixed in. There’s also some Rural Alberta Advantage in there, but to a lesser extent.
That tune is my favorite on the band’s debut full-length release, Moonfire, which came out in August. Other decent tracks include “Feeding Line”, “Milk & Sticks”, My Only One”, “House & Farm” and “Beach”.
Seeker Lover Keeper
One of the more pleasant discoveries on the blog was the Australian supergroup Seeker Lover Keeper. It consists of a trio of female singer-songwriters — Sarah Blasko, Sally Seltmann and Holly Throsby — all of whom have made a name for themselves in a variety of bands and, more prominently, as solo artists.
It would be as if Regina Spektor, Feist and Natasha Bedingfield all got together and put out an album. (I realize none of these women is from the same country, but you get the idea.)
Sidenote: Seltmann co-wrote Feist’s big hit, “1234” several years ago.
As you can imagine, the indie-folk/pop group has amazing harmonies, with each singer getting her share of time behind the mic.
The best song on their self-titled debut album is probably “Even Though I’m a Woman”. Another great track is the closer, “Rest Your Head On My Shoulder”, which does a great job at highlighting each individual voice as well as the three-part harmonies.
Another group I discovered on the blog was YesYou, which is the Brisbane-based duo of Jono Kirkham and Gav Parry. So far, they have only put out one easily downloadable song, “Half of It”. Here is said song, as well as a link to a remix.
Infinite Shuffle 