indie rock

Slaughter Beach, Dog-Safe and Also No Fear

/ James P. Crowley / Leave a comment

On his third record under the Slaughter Beach, Dog moniker, Jake Ewald has found a way to be an emotional and interesting storyteller.  Safe and Also No Fear is the former Modern Baseball singer’s most consistent effort with the project yet.  While the musician still paints very specific sketches of people and places, he isn’t as concerned about stories, as he was on Welcome, or finding a new voice for himself, as he was on Birdie.  Safe has the confidence of a band that have finally found their voice and wanted to make a great record that expands on what they’ve built. Continue reading →

Death Cab For Cutie-Thank You For Today

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            Death Cab For Cutie have always been a respectable indie-rock act with personable lyrics that appeal to people that may also dabble with theatrical emo.  Ben Gibbard and company have always created serviceable sad jams.  Even on 2015’s Kintsugi, despite age and maturity, Gibbard was able to bring the self-loathing goods on a song like “No Room in Frame.”  Thank You For Today sees the band’s expansion of sound that they began exploring on Codes and Keys, but it also sees the band peddling back into their early material.  The album comes out feeling like an incoherent blob of ennui. Continue reading →

Kississippi-Sunset Blush

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This isn’t an album I would normally enjoy.  Debut albums from indie rock bands that toe the line between dream pop and emo are usually aggressively okay.  The songs are fine, but they don’t become interesting until the second album.  That’s sort of the case with Philadelphia’s Kississippi.  Sunset Blush is both energetic and mellow, and it seems like the type of album that I’d shrug off as “fine.”  Here’s the thing: it’s pretty good, and I’ve been really enjoying Kississippi’s first album. Continue reading →

Mount Eerie-Now Only

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               This is all terrible to write about.  Last year’s A Crow Looked at Me was a career-defining album for Phil Elverum.  That’s terrible to say, because it’s an album so rooted in the tragic loss of his wife, Geneviève.  It’s also somewhat ignorant, because Elverum had been working as a musician for over two decades.  While a popular artist in his own rite, A Crow Looked at Me was the sort of album that propelled him into a certain level of mainstream success.  His near-immediate follow-up Now Only should not be nearly as good as it is, but it’s a similarly haunting and honest album. Continue reading →

The Wombats-Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life

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I’m standing in the Subway station waiting for the uptown train and racing to connect to the free WiFi before my train comes so I can download the first single off of the new Wombats album. It downloads as the train is pulling in and I find my seat. I always take a moment right before listening to new music from a favorite band or artist; I want to remember where I first heard a particular song or album in case it becomes of great importance to my life. I take in the blue seats and the fairly empty train car and press play. Continue reading →

awakebutstillinbed-what people call low self-esteem is really just seeing yourself the way other people see you

/ James P. Crowley / Leave a comment

            About three minutes into awakebutstillinbed’s debut album, lead vocalist Shannon Taylor sounds like she’s about to breakdown.  Her voice cracks as she screams, and it’s not pretty.  She doesn’t have the sort of aesthetic screams that blend in with a song cleanly.  She sounds like she’s ugly crying screaming along to the radio.  Awakebutstillinbed channel Taylor’s songs into the type of palatable indie emo that’s probably too intense for the Sorority Noise crowd, and that’s probably for the better.  She doesn’t dress her sadness in longwinded metaphors or interesting instrumentals.  It’s bare. Continue reading →

Jetty Bones-Old Women

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I hate to make the easy comparison, but this sounds like early Paramore in the best possible way.  The band’s sole consistent member and frontwoman Kelc Galluzzo commands a stage and has a voice that rivals Hayley Williams’.  While 2017 has been a great year for female-fronted bands, most tend to lean towards a punkier or more emo sound, and Jetty Bones are unafraid to embrace a sense of mid-2000’s pop-punk.  The pop embrace is in full effect on the band’s second EP, Old Women. Continue reading →

Slaughter Beach, Dog-Birdie

/ James P. Crowley / 2 Comments

It’s not really shocking to find that Jake Ewald is a massive fan of the Mountain Goats and The Weakerthans.  His Modern Baseball songs were always incredibly descriptive and made mundane events seem much more fascinating with his lyrics.  It’s unsurprising that his second album from his Slaughter Beach, Dog outfit bares a strong resemblance to The Weakerthans’ John K. Samson’s recent solo effort.  Birdie is also much more of a jangle-pop effort than even last year’s Welcome.  Birdie seems to be truer to Ewald’s life than the first Slaughter Beach, Dog album in a too sweet for its own good way. Continue reading →

The Killers-Wonderful Wonderful

/ James P. Crowley / 1 Comment

“Run For Cover” could have been the song of the summer.  It’s upbeat, fun and has a great chorus.  In fact, a number of songs from The Killers’ new Wonderful Wonderful scream summer.  Whether it’s adrenaline-thrusting power-pop (see above) or the beachy, U2 doppelgangers (“Life to Come”), it baffles me why this album would be released on the first day of fall, but as fate would have it, the first weekend of fall were the dog-days of summer’s last gasp in New York.  It was a fluke, only Brandon Flowers could attain to maybe make some final gasps for this Killers album. Continue reading →

Black Kids-Rookie

/ ninamascheroni / 1 Comment

Black Kids first and last full album came out in 2008 and while I was a big fan of them back at the beginning of high school I realized I hadn’t listened to their first album Partie Traumatic in full in at least seven years. As I sat down to re-familiarize myself with Partie Traumatic I got sucked back into the goofy upbeat dance world that Black Kids makes you a part of. Continue reading →