With their first full-length release from 2007, Our Future Is History, Long Island alternative band Black Suit Youth places themselves into a place that lies somewhere between Rise Against and Foo Fighters. The Rise Against comparison comes from the band’s songwriting style, which sticks with fairly heavy guitar riffs (but not so heavy that...
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I came at music from a pop-punk background. I got Relient K’s Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek when I was thirteen, and it turned me into a music fiend. From there I worked my way through emo and hardcore, back to indie-rock, through indie-pop and power-pop, through folk and acoustic pop, up towards...
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The Lava Children’s self-titled mini-LP was released a couple of weeks ago. It isn’t terribly long, hence the “mini-” designation, but the five tracks they offer are a good collection of their efforts thus far. The PR blurb I received said something about their music being like nothing I’d ever heard before. I was...
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Review "New England" EP from Portland-based folk-pop group The Dimes
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I often wonder at the sheer number and variety of genres and sub-genres. In my more cynical moments I am convinced that obscure genres are the products of a conspiracy between musicians and writers attempting to make unoriginal or unbearable music appealing to college students or habitual myspacers. Admittedly, I fall into both of...
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Pie>A Love Like Pi>cake A Love Like Pi’s album Atlas and the Oyster is a buzzing, beautiful electronic/punk/rock jumble of joy. Danceable, rhythmic, and interspersed with surprises, the album coasts along in all its synthesized glory. One song flows seamlessly into the next. Pair that with the fact that there is a cohesive...
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Even though I live in Oklahoma, listening to its radio stations has always been problematic for me. They come in five types: Rap, Hot Country, Oldies, Christian and Top 40. The Top 40 station isn’t bad, since the Top 40 has recently been filling with techno-influenced everything (which is great, but another essay). The...
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Have you heard of Suckers before? No? Well now that I’ve got you here, no more excuses. They’re a New York-based band with some serious talent and a sound that’s something like Polyphonic Spree mixed with Louis XIV and Franz Ferdinand. A lot of diverse instrumentation is one of their strengths; in fact, each...
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Built by Snow, a band hailing from Austin, Texas, describes their music as “catchy keyboard indie pop rock with an explosion of velcro melodies and magnetic hooks that hit your brain like an Atari blasting out of a bazooka.” “Whoa,” I hear you readers say. “That band sounds like they would be fun to...
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I’m writing this review from Xishuangbanna, a region in southwestern China. It sits along the Mekong river, not very far from the borders of Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar. It’s hot, humid, and currently raining almost every day – monsoon season and all. You know how it goes. Anyway, the general attitude is very laid-back,...
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