Lightspeed Champion – Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You
Dev Hynes brings us more songs of bittersweet romance on his sophomore release as Lightspeed Champion.
Spoon – Atlanta – 14 April 2008
Spoon Centre Stage, Atlanta, GA 14th April 2008 It's Britt Daniel's birthday but you wouldn't know it. There's no cake and candles, no rambunctious behaviour or jokes. You'd be expecting the band to be soused
The Gaslight Anthem – American Slang
More emotional missives from angry, intense, young American men. What steady diet do they feed you on?
Beirut – The Rip Tide
With our review dispensing superlatives like "timeless" and "classic", Beirut's The Rip Tide is one of the must-listen albums of 2011.
Harlem – Hippies
Of Harlem, this brief explanation should suffice -- "those who don’t sicken quickly of energetic, repetitive three-chord rock will have a lot to love".
Destroyer – London – 28 June 2011
How strange to be more than fifteen years into a career and to finally achieve growing, and now glowing, recognition for the music you make. Bands today, the inverse applies, they learn to walk before they can crawl, record a debut they'll never repeat and disappear as if they never existed. Real artists will maintain and nurture their craft regardless of an audience, which more or less, is the story of Dan Bejar. Better known as the wild-card songwriter in Canadian power-pop supergroup The New Pornographers, Bejar's work as Destroyer is like mainlining into Bejar's psyche, which prior to you only got the briefest taste of.
Stephen Malkmus – London – 9 December 2009
Stephen Malkmus has been ‘jicking’ for as long now as he was leading the charge in Pavement, releasing as many albums, yet never reaching the same heights. His solo career seemed to be in constant war of expectation over delivery. It's not Pavement. It's not a bunch of twenty-year-olds fighting their generation. But the louche stage prescence, that hazy cynical drawl, the greying hair framing the eyes in a semi-slacker curl, little has changed over the years.
Silversun Pickups – Swoon
Have the Silversun Pickups swooned too soon? We pickup the pieces of the LA band's second album.
Vivian Girls – Everything Goes Wrong
The title may be Everything Goes Wrong, but to our ears, everything goes right for the Vivian Girls on their sophomore release.
Fruit Bats – Tripper
Chicago's Fruit Bats return to their familiar "effortless and sweet" indie folk ways on their fifth album, Tripper.
Howler – This One’s Different
From the label that gave you The Libertines and The Strokes, here's another young and disaffected indie guitar band.
Yvonne – Gothenburg – 6 June 2009
Last year the band reformed and did a one-off gig at Debaser in Stockholm. This year was Gothenburg's turn. For one night we all got to be teenagers again
Metric – Jimmy Shaw Q&A (2009)
As predicted Metric have blown up, but not blown away, big time. Fantasies reached number eight on the Canadian charts and crept into the Australian Top 40 and US Top 100, while incessant touring in
Titus Andronicus – The Monitor
Ragged fist-pumping fury from outta New Jersey. Named after one of Shakespeare's earliest tragedies. Fact.
No Years Festival – Brisbane – 31 December 2010
New Years Eve’s are traditionally unplanned, last minute events, involving clubs or house parties especially in laissez-faire Brisbane. This year was different. An independent music festival at the Powerhouse, brazenly named No Years! offered a tempting program. 21 bands in total: 14 local, 5 interstate and 2 international acts, over eleven hours at lovely New Farm location. We cast our NYE net on Australia's Bleeding Knees Club, Parades, Love Connection, Jonathan Boulet, The John Steel Singers and Oh Ye Denver Birds. And see who ranks best out of America Neon Indian and Sweden Shout Out Louds.
Atlas Sound – Logos
Bradford Cox of Deerhunter makes us seem like we're slavishly supportive of everything his hand touches, but we mean every word. Honest.















