AltWeeklies Wire
Oulipo's Primitive Waysnew
Primitive Ways sounds like the next step of an almost great band, drunk on possibilities but still learning how to present them.
Caltrop's Ten million years and eight minutesnew
When it's exciting, Ten million years is a reminder of the energy to be found at the borders of hard rock and heavy metal. (Holidays for Quince)
Organos' Conchanew
Organos and Concha are happily different both in source and sound, offering a humbly memorable reappraisal of the limits of pop.
Tags: Organo
Jphono1's Living Is Easynew
Living Is Easy is a new double collaboration between Jphono1—the solo project of John Harrison, veteran frontman of stormy psychedelic act North Elementary—and area graphic artist Regina McCoy and Atlanta musician Corey Pallon.
Tags: Jphono1
T0W3RS' Summertimenew
In the 10 minutes of their debut EP, Chapel Hill's T0W3RS suggest a special, multivalent magic. (Diggup Tapes)
Tags: Summertime, TOW3RS
Locrian/Horseback: New Dominionsnew
Mean as hell, loud as your speakers will allow, New Dominions is the sound of old ideas imploding.
Tags: Locrian/Horseback
Birds and Arrows: We're Gonna Runnew
Whereas their debut was a look at a new couple dealing lovingly with life, We're Gonna Run adds appropriate clouds to a once-honeymoon atmosphere.
Tags: Birds and Arrows
Once & Future Kings' Dead Lionsnew
Dead Lions treads the waters between Radiohead and Explosions in the Sky, using pretty piano-and-guitar-laced textures to build into big rock codas time and again.
Tags: Radiohead, Once & Future Kings
I Was Totally Destroying It's New EP Feels Stiffnew
Preludes feels like a deliberate attempt not to make an explosive rock record but to expand demographics by showing that -- beneath that poppy Hot Topic veneer -- there's real-life indie credibility, with old U2 references, new wave nods and vocal affectations that shine back on the local indie lords, Eric Bachmann and Mac McCaughan.
Filthybird Finally Flies--In Music and In Lovenew
Songs for Other People, Filthybird's second album, is an arduously made, exquisitely written record.
Tags: Filthybird
The Small Ponds' Caitlin Cary & Matt Douglas Are The Small Pondsnew
Caitlin Cary could start a goddamn grindcore band and she'd still be tagged popularly as an alt-country siren.
Tags: The Small Ponds
If James Jackson Toth is Sell-out Freak-folk, Keep It Comingnew
Outsider figurehead Devendra Banhart may date Hollywood actress Natalie Portman, and CocoRosie may have nabbed a multi-page spread in a July New York Times Magazine. But don't expect the beloved beardos and weirdos to be on sale at Wal-Mart summarily.
Des Ark Create a Modern Folk Masterpiecenew
You can debate the use of the f-word, but the nine songs of this handmade, spraypaint-and-magic marker EP are irrefutable folk gems -- authentic, real, and so of a time and place that they often sound like 2008 companion pieces to Harry Smith's old-time anthologies.
The Strugglers Last Album?new
Whether The Latest Rights proves a terminus or simply the start of a slow cessation for The Strugglers -- a band that's always treated the trials of melancholy like a reason to continue -- it's a brilliant climax.
