The story of Milwaukee’s Jaill sounds like it was ripped straight out of a screenplay for the indie hit of the year: Vincent Kircher and Austin Dutmer realize they’re getting older and decide to finally get serious about their part-time band they started seven years ago which had, until then, only amounted to losing bass [...]

It’s been peeling away for a while, but at this point the tense, calculated, economic guitar blasts of Blonde Redhead have completely disappeared — as if swept under the doormat with the rest of the ‘90s. The Blonde Redhead of 2010 is a predominantly electronic affair, submerged in murky, downbeat synth-pop. The band’s latest effort, [...]

Within the limited confines of creativity that plagues the hardcore punk scene, where plenty of teenagers and twenty-somethings attempt to recycle the blindingly fast and ferocious riffs of Void, Koro, and early Black Flag, every now and then something incredibly original emerges that demands immediate absorption from anyone paying attention. While No Friends’ newest release [...]

Mr. Wells is in the wrong business: he should have been a blues singer. On his homage to Louisville, Kentucky, he can’t live with your fears and worries, nor does he think its ever going to work out, and you will haunt him, how you will haunt him. His Daniel Johnston-style vocals showcase these both [...]

We Were Skeletons’ newest, a 32-minute record, is made for fast music fans, for ears tuned less to melody and more to sheer speed; all the catharsis and release not coming from a pinpoint note or melody, but a hard-edged, primal excretion of human energy — the tuning fork of the heart ringing at the [...]

After 15 years, five full length albums, and a rotating roster of musicians, the Mad Caddies are pulling out all the stops and are finally releasing a “best of” album. Consensual Selections features 22 cuts from the Caddies past plus two new tracks. For those unfamiliar to the the Caddies’ sound, their eclectic ska-punk sound [...]

The Vaselines deserve some major credit for sticking to their guns. It’s been 20 years since the band’s last, first, and only full-length album, Dum-Dum. Thankfully, the Scottish duo’s latest effort, Sex With An X, picks up exactly where that left off.
The album’s sound is early-‘90s alternative rock; the kind of stuff that influenced Nirvana [...]

The British band Foals’ debut record Antidotes was called a “special album,” so it’s no surprise that this second release surely follows suit.  Like Local Natives and Vampire Weekend, these chaps really dig their David Byrne — the impressively funky title track would fit right in on Talking Heads ’77. The danceable opener “Blue Blood”, [...]

Mike Hadreas makes a whole lot out of a little as Perfume Genius. On his debut album Learning, he answers, possibly unintentionally, the question: “What would a Sufjan Stevens album sound like without a full band backing him up?”
Not only does Hadreas’s voice recall Steven’s boyish style, he shares the skill of creating an album [...]

The debut of the new self-titled album by Everyone Everywhere is a pulsating tingle of sooth and electricity. Oftentimes harkening back to what sounds like the roots of early Death Cab for Cutie and then occasionally popping some mid-‘90s geek rock into the mix with their adolescent lyrics and fuzzy guitars, Everyone Everywhere is one [...]

Boyish and small, but packing a deep pool of R&B soul in his effervescing delivery, Joe Worricker is…well, he’s something else, that’s for sure. EP (appropriately named) starts off its run with “Little Man,” a cool, bluesy/jazz hybrid number that evokes the image of some poor soul crouched over a piano in the dark, playing [...]

Don’t you love when new punk music doesn’t fucking suck? Yeah? Me too.
The Flatliners’ sound is a beautiful Frankenstein creation of every aspect of punk music that I really can’t classify, yet over the course of The Flatliners’ Cavalcade, you’ll hear influences from nearly every punk band that mattered, from the birth of the genre [...]

Holy Fuck’s band name lends itself to an easy enthusiastic review. Sort of like the film Kick-Ass, it’s a fine line that must be walked so that the reviewer doesn’t just rest on the not-so-clever play on words that is offered. But that aside, Holy Fuck is completely worthy of their title. The new album, [...]

After touring with each other for years, Earlimart and Grandaddy decided to link up after long tinkering with the idea of collaborating musically. Finally, Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray of Earlimart and Jason Lytle and Aaron Burtch of Grandaddy joined together. After considering the names Earlidaddy and Grandimart, they settled on Admiral Radley, an [...]

Daylight is a band that plays loud music with screaming vocals that make an entirely forgettable record. “The Best” is a somewhat enjoyable track that takes strains of Dillinger Four and Jawbreaker into the best song on the album. Otherwise, the album is a flop with the same generic loud sounds you can hear done [...]