Navigated the pop/rock underground 2007-2012
Braids – Native Speaker
Debut album from Montreal's Braids. Like a Canadian Animal Collective with female vocals? Read on and find out...
Times New Viking – Born Again Revisited
Born Again Revisited or bad idea revisited? Public opinion be damned. Is this the worst album we've heard all year?
The Minus 5 – Killingsworth
No longer young bucks American supergroup The Minus 5 release their eighth album of beautiful stories, pretty melodies and career-defining songs.
M83 – Saturdays = Youth
Virgin, 2008 [rating:7/10] I have a very vivid memory of M83's previous album Before the Dawn Heals Us being played at a thunderous volume while sleeping at a friend's house early one morning, and it
Constantines – Exclusive Interview (2008)
Back in the UK touring their latest album Kensington Heights, Webcuts managed to square away some interview time with Constantines guitarist/vocalist Steve Lambke before their recent headline show at London's Wilmington Arms. Constantines - Live
The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
Lit-rock pansies The Decemberists release The Hazards Of Love, their follow-up to 2006's omni-directional The Crane Wife which saw the band reach new heights of smugness, shifting in excess of 300,000 copies in the States alone.
Adalita – Dusting off the Magic Dirt (2009)
Having first dipped her toes in the solo waters for the soundtrack to the movie Suburban Mayhem in 2006, Adalita Srsen has remained steadfast fronting Melbourne's mothers of sonic invention, Magic Dirt. Webcuts catches up with Adalita to discuss her transition into the solo arena.
Destroyer – Dan Bejar talking about Kaputt (2011)
It's been said by Webcuts in the past that Destroyer's Dan Bejar is the Woody Allen of pop music. His idiosyncratic, poetic touch is less that of a lyricist but a storyteller with a revolving cast of characters (mostly women), and picking up on the ripples and waves they create to make them a part of his own interior monologue. An essential eighth of the mighty New Pornographers, Bejar has been recording as Destroyer since the 90's. Kaputt, his ninth album is a sumptious, rhapsodic slice of 80's melodrama, immersing itself entirely in the era from the vintage instrumentation to Bejar's own penchance for seeking the sublime out of what some might find the ridiculous.
Who The Hell Are… The Capitalist Youth?
Consider The Capitalist Youth, a trio of former high school classmates who play “acoustic indie rock combining a living room full of misfit instruments with lyrically driven songs about summer camp, existential crises and gubernatorial indiscretions”. They don’t write and play the kind of music that will leave listeners dumbstruck over their redefinition of a genre, but they’re able to adeptly inject something into their music that only a handful of others have done well: humanity, with a laid back sense of humor, and without any of the awkward pauses that come from other bands who get lucky on a song or two and can’t maintain things the rest of the way.
Summer Camp – Welcome To Condale
London, Paris, Condale, Munich. Everybody's talking about Summer Camp's pop music. Well, not everybody. But they should.