Power pop
Not Forgotten: Rock Bass – Garbles
With their debut, Garbles, it’s quite obvious that Rock Bass do power pop. However, the trouble with a lot of power pop is that so much of it can sound really quite generic. Of course, historically the keystone act was Big Star, but there have been other stand outs as well. Cheap Trick, Teenage Fanclub, …
See: Greywind release new video for Circle
Irish alt-rockers Greywind have just finished a handful of dates with FARRO (ex-paramore) and have released a new video for the track Circle ahead of their debut album Afterthoughts, which drops on January 27th. The brother sister duo recorded the album with producer Jason Perry in Texas and Paul O’Sullivan, one half of the duo …
See: The Blend release new video for ‘Don’t Waste My Time’
Taken from their recently released album ‘All Departures’, South East Coast indie rockers The Blend have released a video to accompany their track ‘Don’t Waste My Time’. Drawing comparisons with the likes of The Who, the band certainly revel in a sense of the anti-establishment, and backed up with splashes of keys infiltrating the driving …
Album Review: Purple – Bodacious
Texas three piece Purple have released their latest album Bodacious, through PIAS. If you’re unfamiliar with their work, think noisey, frayed at the edges power-pop, with a heap of punk attitude and some wonky arty chord progressions thrown in for good measure. It’s this mixture of the quirky and the catchy and the sour that …
Track: Turtlenecked – Mondrian
Harrison Smith, aka Turtlenecked hails from that musical hot spot of Portland, Oregon and makes music that is noisy, frayed at the edges indie rock. Apparently written in the show, his new track is Mondrian, taken from his forthcoming album Pure Plush Bone Cage, out on Good Cheer Records on August 19th. Over these insistent, …
Track: Black Surf – Sink
After forming through the wonders of facetime and dropbox over vast distances – Yorkshire and Sydney to be exact, Leeds based Black Surf have revealed Sink from their forthcoming EP Let’s pretend its summer – out August 26th via Cowboy Records. Recorded at Greenmount Studios (The Cribs, Pulled Apart By Horses, The Vaccines), vocalist Ali …
Album Review: Leapling – Suspended Animation
When an album opens with several bars of naked kick-snare you know you’re dealing with a supremely confident artist. ‘I Decide When It Begins’ isn’t a song title that sounds like it is lacking in authority, and while it’s deciding, the intro continues to rise tauntingly, introducing crunchy fret-noise on the beat like a funk-loving …
See: Summer Scouts reveal new video for Vessels
‘Family life and norms change dramatically after the death of a parent’, say Allentown, PA power poppers Summer Scouts of their track Vessels, before continuing “The home itself takes a drastic shift in its overall aura, a shift that’s slowly continues for years after the death, forever losing its original feeling. While the family’s personalities …
Track: Dead Stars – In My Mind
In My Mind, the new single from Brooklyn trio Dead Stars owes a lot to the 90s indie (power) pop of the likes of Weezer, Dinosaur Jr and The Lemonheads, but there’s something more than that. There’s still the wash of guitars and the slacker rock vocal lines and the slightly angsty feeling that permeates …
See: Graham Parker & The Rumour release video for Railroad Spikes
Graham Parker and the Rumour’s second post-reunion album, Mystery Glue, is due out May 18th. The Rumour was pre-punk singer-songwriter Graham Parker’s backing band from 1975 to 1980, consisting of Andrew Bodnar, Bob Andrews, Brinsley Schwarz, Martin Belmont, and Stephen Goulding. Brinsley Schwartz alone is noteworthy as one of Britain’s best power pop/pub rock guitarists. …