Johnathan Rice's new album Further North comes out in September. I haven't got an mp3 of the first single but here's the video and witty press conference.
Having offered up the lastest Interpol single to you lovely people in a previous missive, I'm proud to give you the video. Unfortunately there are no glimpses of Carlos D's fantastic new moustache as the band don't feature at all. The video is suitably arty for a band who penned the lyric 'The subway is a porno' and probably incredibly poignant and satirical if you think about it for a while.
The Beastie Boys are back, and like their previous album they have decided to stick to one style for an entire album. Whereas To The 5 Boroughs was all NY hip hop, their latest album, The Mix Up, is all instrumental jams. Why they couldn't have mixed them up (no pun intended) to create an album akin to Check Your Head or Ill Communication I don't know. But we leave them to it, they are the Beastie Boys and they deserve at least that after all the good stuff they've given us over the years.
Anyhoo, here's two videos they've knocked up for a couple of tracks, Off The Grid and The Rat Cage. They are pretty lo-fi, shot on cine camera with no real synchronisation to the music (well not much). These are also just streaming I'm afraid, but you can watch them for as long as you want. They certainly remind me of the really good instrumental stuff from Check Your Head and Ill Communication, and we all remember how good Futterman's Rule was.
The Snake, The Cross, The Crown’s first album sounded to me like a prog Smiths, but this track from the new album Cotton Teeth has more of a Wilco flavour to it. I know very little else about this band except I like what I hear. Their bio ends with the lines: ‘They played to be honest. They played to be heard. But most of all, they played songs to be with each other, because the world simply sounded better that way’ which is a little pretentious but I bet they didn’t write it.
Dear & The Headlights are listed as indie rock on AMG, and I suppose that about sums it up. This song has a Brand New feel, and sounds decidedly British (although the band are from Arizona): acoustic guitar, tortured vocals, but it is much cooler than that, and with a touch of Buffalo Tom thrown in – watch out for the guitar solo near the end. This is taken from their debut album, Small Steps, Heavy Hooves.
Dustin Kensrue is the lead singer of Thrice, but his solo material is anything but Thrice. His solo album, Please Come Home, comes from the Nebraska school of music. That’s Nebraska as in Bruce Springsteen. Stripped down, soul bearing acoustic music. There may be trite moments of self saviour on the album but this track, Pistol, is a poignant dedication to his wife.
The Dear Hunter take refuge on Triple Crown Records (once home of Brand New) and certainly have a great deal of depth to their sound. The song I have heard (and you will too) has piano, noodle riffs and some imaginative background vocals. AP likened them to Say Anything, but I'll say if you mix in Fall of Troy and The Mars Volta, you might be getting somewhere. The song below, City Escape, is from the mini album Act I: The Lake South, The River North but a full length, Act II: The Meaning Of, And All Things Regarding Ms. Leading is out next week.
The second band I found are Kaddisfly. It now appears that I can't find them in AP so I have no idea how I stumbled across them. Tell a lie, I found it. AP says they sound like Smashing Pumpkins, Circa Survive and Incubus. They certainly have those elements (less Pumpkins and the early weird end of Incubus), but again the vocals and melodies are great and the guitar lines a little more complex. Watch out for the chorus on the track below Campfire, as it is awesome. The album is called Set Sail The Prairie and is on Hopeless Records (once home to Avenged Sevenfold I believe, but don't let that put you off)
Anyway, Jim Suptic, who played guitar in GUK, now has his own band called Blackpool Lights. I tracked down a couple of songs (found at Can You See The Sunset From The Southside? - thank you and check it out, it's a great blog) and I think they are pretty damn good. If you like Hot Rod Circuit, Limbeck and suchlike, I think you'll like these a lot. I do.
Firstly we have Manchester Orchestra. I was drawn towards them because I saw they were touring with Brand New, a personal favourite of mine. This song, Wolves At Night, is from their first album I'm Like a Virgin Losing A Child. Unfortunately I can't seem to find it to buy anywhere, which is a shame because it's great. They are definitely in the Brand New school of emo, more Smiths than Smashing Pumpkins.
Secondly I found out more about The Postmarks simply because I thought their singer, the androgynously named Tim Yehezkely, was good looking. They have a light sound, but not as whimsical as say Eisley. I think they're like the good end of Belle & Sebastian. The album is self-titled.
This track has a heavy Zeppelin feel with excellent soulful backing vocals and is from the debut album Soft Targets, which has a good album cover too.
The Fall Of Troy are a tricky one. The music they create defies their ages (somewhere around their early 20s) and just the first riff of opener I Just Got This Symphony Goin' (from last year’s Doppelganger) blows you so far away that jaws fall to the floor. The only issue I had was the unnecessary amounts of screaming, especially as singer Thomas Erak has a fine set of pipes. What we cannot fault them on, however, is the quite brilliant song titles. Who else do you know who has songs called We Better Learn To Hot Wire A Uterus, A Man. A Plan. A Canal. Panama. (a well known palindrome) and the utterly sublime Macaulay McCulkin. Anyway the pick of the new tracks available is Semi-Fiction, but in my opinion this doesn’t beat F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X.
MP3: Interpol - The Heinrich Maneuver
Minus The Bear are a band I bought the CD of when I was in America last year. I only bought it because I couldn't find the Protest The Hero album. Some people would describe them as 'Math-Rock' but that doesn't really describe them. Their previous album, Menos El Oso is an amazing piece of work. The video for Pachuca Sunrise is evidence of this below.
