i hate the sound of guitars

Holy crap, I haven’t written about Mixtapes before? Really!? I have literally listened to this band more than any other artist this year.
Mixtapes live in a weird intersection between well-produced pop-punk and lo-fi indie pop. On the one hand they have a fatter drum sound than I expect from low-budget indies; on the other, [...]

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On the A-side, Lemuria offer two more examples of the smart, catchy, indie rock that’s made Pebble one of my most-played albums of the year so far. I expected their side to be swell, and it delivers. But the revelation here for me is Cheap Girls’ “Pure Hate.” I’m not quite sure what “And I/Keep [...]

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Somewhere between roots-rock and power pop, with some swell vocal harmonies. Veteran producer Ed Valausksas stitches it all together nicely. If I were in a quibbling mood I’d say some of these songs are stretched out a tiny bit more than might be optimal, but the under-two-minute “Braedon” certainly isn’t; it’s my fave. Other highlights [...]

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One disadvantage of my “quick take” approach to album reviews is that sometimes my response to a record changes significantly over time. Fortunately on the internets I can amend earlier commentary when I think it’s necessary.
I’ve been feeling bad about my initial response to Mars Classroom’s The New Theory of Everything almost since I posted [...]

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Preludes makes me think of Metric, not because I Was Totally Destroying It sound like Metric — they mostly don’t, although “Fight/Flight” does a bit — but because Preludes feels like the kind of leap that Metric made between Grow Up And Blow Away and Fantasies: the elements are the same, but everything is in [...]

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Longtime readers will know that my love for all things Big Dipper-related is even more boundless and unconditional than my love for most things GBV-related, so maybe it’s inevitable that my (stratospheric) expectations for this project weren’t quite met by the first listen. The Bob Pollard/Gary Waleik balance seems a bit more skewed toward the [...]

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Yep is Al Chan (of The Rubinoos) and Mark Caputo (of Belleville, who I vow to investigate) singing extremely tasteful, alt-country-flavored arrangements of a bunch of covers they like (and one Caputo original) with a large (but cohesive) cast of supporting musicians. The centerpiece here is Chan and Caputo’s vocal performances, which are impeccable. They [...]

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with The Ackleys:
The Ackleys (2005); Forget Forget, Derive Derive (EP, 2006)
Indie-power-pop. Splashy drums, some keyboards give it a slightly new-wave sheen.
as King Everything:
The Drought (2008)
Mostly acoustic guitar/vocal
with P.S. Eliot:
The Bike Wreck Demo (2008, read about Bike Wreck demo here), Introverted Romance in Our Troubled Minds (2009), Living in Squalor (EP, 2010, pay-what-you-want download), Sadie (2011)
Except [...]

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It was just about a month ago that I became aware of the self-described “pop music cult” Hussalonia, and since then I’ve listened to Hussalonia songs about 350 times. Even more surprising, I’m showing no signs of getting sick of them.
Partly this is because Hussalonia is really good*, partly it’s because they (mostly just he [...]

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And now for something completely different. I Hate CD’s offers a whopping 45 cuts from the vaults of “Wild Rock” specialists Norton Records. The selections span 5 decades or so of garage, rockabilly, psychobilly, power-pop, and other flavors of rock’n’roll. (Norton Records celebrated their 20th anniversary last year, but they’ve unearthed and reissued many obscure [...]

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