Slipped Discs
Discs You May Have Missed
by John Noyd
Yellowbirds - The Color
YellowbirdsThe Color
Label: The Royal Potato Family
Former Apollo Sunshine singer/songwriter Sam Cohen’s cosmic rock crop of rafter-rattling pop ricochets from reverb-heavy heartache to bright, astral enlightenment. Evoking psychotropic-folk fandangos via effects-laden auto-harps, brisk, mournful guitars and thick percussive conniptions, “Color,” cranks out blissfully boisterous warbling; open road odes to safe havens from rollicking rainbow souls brimming with evangelical fire, worldly wayfarer wisdom and unchained changeling jangle.
• Yellowbirds WebsiteStricken City - Losing Colour
Stricken CityLosing Colour
Label: Kora Records
Announcing their demise before releasing their final effort, London-based indie-pop instigators Stricken City insure their underground cult status with nimble middle class narratives marrying sinister riffs and cavernous crescendos to winged deliveries tunneling through riveting rhythms. Posh pariahs stylishly sizing up fleeting scenes, “Losing,” fuses vexing questions and parochial prose to turbulent furnaces stoking fiery choirs and deft, reflective projections.
• Stricken City Website • Stricken City FacebookSoutheast Engine - Canary
Southeast EngineCanary
Label: Misra
Penitent and persevering, rowdy and reverent, SEE’s gurgling Wurlitzers and Delta-bound brass rile rustic ruckus for relapsed travails, electrified revivalists fronting frontier racketeers, recasting tragic burdens into grizzled, gratifying honky-tonk. A ragged tabernacle, “Canary,” canvasses unflappable affirmations etched in mournful cornfields, barnyard brimstone and boardwalk morality; rousing rust belt ballads conjuring coal mines and cold spells, bad luck and love-sickness.
• Southeast Engine Website • Southeast Engine Facebook • Southeast Engine WikiLonely Forest - Arrows
Lonely ForestArrows
Label: Trans Records
Grass-roots minutiae fuel monumental pop as soft-spoken notions build to pouncing indie-rock onslaughts, “Arrows,” targets existential displacement inside self-assured thoughts. Pensive engines drive soul-searching questions, uplifting torrents of shape-shifting sympathies assembling resplendent, compelling parades. Sailing and skating over breathless rhythms and runaway bass, TLF’s punchy electric strumming quivers in shiny, obliging slip ‘n slide wildness, barely containing contagious, ageless sincerity.
• The Lonely Forest Website • The Lonely Forest Facebook • The Lonely Forest WikiManchester Orchestra - Simple Math
Manchester OrchestraSimple Math
Label: Famous Gentlemen
Weary indie-rock antiheroes compose symphonic underdog uprisings, energized by scorching discourse brimming in frank angst and suburban ennui. Vague prey hunted in restless, impetuous reconnaissance, “Math,” traps sacred aching in sinister hook-filled insurrections and breathless mosh-pit proclamations. Balancing searching grandeur against seething street-wise insecurity, MO’s epic introspection sweeps over tender defenses, bolstered by defiant alliance, minor-key reprieves and cathartic martyrdom.
• Manchester Orchestra Website • Manchester Orchestra Facebook • Manchester Orchestra WikiDavid Kilgour and the Heavy Eights - Left By Soft
David Kilgour and the Heavy EightsLeft By Soft
Label: Merge
Kiwi Merseybeat shaken, tamed and reborn, Kilgour and mates burst with deep-shag majesty, drizzling thunderous blues over braided electric-folk, adding vertigo-inducing transcendence over sturdy, understated song. Compact covenants swimming in shimmering chords, “Soft,” howls, prowls and harmonizes, campfire jangle-rock drifting in placid dappled patterns as level-headed lyrics brave vast swells of multi-layered guitars reaping rippling skiffle sizzling in psychedelic tranquility.
• David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights Website • David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights Facebook • David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights WikiSecret Cities - Strange Hearts
Secret CitiesStrange Hearts
Label: Western Vinyl
Love children from Brill Building refugees, S C mastermind lo-fi, reverb-addled shin-digs; muffled scuffles baked inside grandly bandied jukebox soufflés whose gentle persuasions with twilight choirs shiver behind fading AM beach-party bingo. Swooning and canoodling through retroactive odysseys, “Strange,” hosts idyllic misfit idolizers worshipping vintage pop thoughts, ghostly baroque smokescreens soaked in rainy-day dreams, fab nostalgia and timeless adolescent appetites.
• Secret Cities Website • Secret Cities FacebookAlina Simone - Make Your Own Danger
Alina SimoneMake Your Own Danger
Label: Pentar
Thrusting cellos, hunted drums, writhing flights of tungsten tongues dressed in blacksmith brass sparking private and perilous prose, “Danger,” wrangles war-cry choruses from hounded prayers, elusive truths become locomotive prey charging into accelerated folk-punk blues. Brittle, bold and brazen, Simone’s furtive curtsies and volcanic candor reinforce scornful searchlight labors, thorny bulimic images navigating lean serpentine situations, guarded, bartered and charmed.
• Alina Simone Website • Alina Simone FacebookTom Vek - Leisure Seizure
Tom VekLeisure Seizure
Label: Cooperative Music USA
Hard-wired, pneumatic-addled New Wave statements invade unbraided electro-clash abrasions set to tarnished tempos, droll factory-fashioned funk and slinky syncopated synthesizers; Vek’s clattering malice and energetic menace coil around coarse torque constructing post-industrial petulance via sermons on the dance floor. Suspicious and ambitious, “Leisure,” tumbles wonderfully, trigger-happy slap-shots aimed at callously cool feigned disdain, fabulously retro-fitted fits equipped with post-modern imaginations.
• Tom Vek Website • Tom Vek Facebook • Tom Vek WikiThe Wooden Birds - Two Matchsticks
The Wooden BirdsTwo Matchsticks
Label: Barsuk
American Analog Set’s Andrew Kenny’s new band retains AAS’s laidback outlook compiling crisp wisdom inside colorful cooing and modest acoustic musings. Cozy, folk-pop breeziness fortified by shimmering marimbas, soft strumming and horse-drawn rhythms, “Matchsticks,” glows in deceptively demure assurances churning patient complacence from twilight insights and lively shyness, inviting politeness channeling sly, bouncy foxtrots, cantering ballads dispensing love-sick riffs .
• The Wooden Birds Website • The Wooden Birds Facebook • The Wooden Birds WikiArt Brut - Brilliant! Tragic!
Art BrutBrilliant! Tragic!
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Clever condescension rocks around hell-bent expressions as, “Brilliant,” rips through half-rapped narratives combining insolent wit dipped in irony, sputtering bluster outsmarting intellect and bristling against convention. Revealing and rebellious, post-punk apostles Art Brut’s blunt frustrations corral rough and tumble rhetoric whose cheeky reasons begat tender second-guessing amid cut-throat couplets whose deafening deliberateness clamor for conclusions colliding with middle-class conceits .
• Art Brut Website • Art Brut Facebook • Art Brut WikiWoods - Sun and Shade
WoodsSun and Shade
Label: Woodsist Records
Wide-eyed and blissfully innocent, mischievous sixties whimsy snaps, crackles and pops brokered in corrosive overdoses of basement space-rock. A glorious and incandescent, “Sun,” runs tweaked twee dreams around quaint paisley mazes and woozy hallucinogenic textures as knob-twiddling wizards skip merrily into crashing waves laced with rainbow fuzz and sunflower jangle. Woods’ anachronistic sizzle whittles charmed adolescent experiments into galactic-spackled monuments.
• Woods Website • Woods WikiView More
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