sleepcomesdown - Vapor Kicks

Drawing influence from the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Deerhunter, Sonic Youth, and Animal Collective sleepcomesdown presents a unique sound in the Milwaukee scene.  With influences like these it is no wonder their live performances consist of an absolute wall of sound made up of fuzzy guitars, synths, and various other reverb producing gadgets.   What is surprising is their ability to avoid pretension while flawlessly combining these various influences.

D.I.Y. to the core; you won't find sleepcomesdown on a major label.  You will however, find them booking their own shows, screen printing their own artwork, and even building their own practice space.   They are prolific performers (as I've stated in earlier posts), jamming as much sound and lights into a set as possible.  They are big budget sound for the basement show price.

So check these guys out if you like shoegaze, or post punk, or noise, or if you simply like a bunch of guys playing music for the right reasons.

Try

Seriously buy this

-Jim

M.I.A - Born Free video

Plenty of nudity and blood just a heads up

Gingers are so culturally relevant right now
-Jim

The Besnard Lakes Are Roaring HMHYHT!

Look! Another nice album cover by some band you might not have heard of!

The Besnard Lakes are a Canadian band fronted by a husband-and-wife duo (sound familiar?) who make some really good shoegaze with some post-rock elements thrown in.
Now, I'm not the biggest fan of the genre, but when something catches your attention, you tend to stop caring about all that.

On The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, their third album, there's something I'd never experienced from a shoegaze group before, good vocals! They're really something special, along the harmonies, which sound a lot like Bon Iver's at some points, especially on Chicago Train.

If you've got 45 minutes to spend on listening to this gem, the I highly suggest you take advantage of it.

Download


- Gio

Malegoat - Plan Infiltration

Have you ever wondered what Algernon Cadwallader would sound like if they were singing in Japanese?  Or have you ever speculated what Cap'n Jazz would sound like if their name was Jap'n Jazz?  Wonder no longer.  All terrible puns aside,  Malegoat recently toured the east coast of the United States and caused quite the stir in the emo scene with their somewhat familiar, yet somehow refreshing music.  If you check their lengthy list of influences on their myspace it is no wonder that they present the sound you they do.  Their popularity on this side of the ocean has been growing over the last year so give them a shot. 

Shout out to to the guys at something about music for giving me a heads up on this band.

oh and an even more important shout out to ALI for making that cool Professor Bros. pic! (and for proof reading)

EDIT:  I really screwed up the try it link.  Fixed Now. Sorry

Try it 

Buy it
-Jim

Indian Summer - Science

You know those few days in autumn when the weather gets really nice and mild after you thought summer was gone for good?  It's pretty awesome isn't it?  For those lucky enough to live in a more accomodating environment; The Farmer's Almanac tells us that the period of sunny and warm weather after the leaves have changed and there was already frost is called Indian Summer.  One of the few gems of living in the midwest when it comes to weather.

Speaking of gems and enjoyable atmosphere I present you the band Indian Summer, a must listen for the emotive hardcore fan.  Bringing a mixture of chaos and calm Indian Summer's Science is a relatively underappreciated example of early punk influenced emo.  Their obscurity should come as no surprise due to their relatively short lifespan (1993-1994) and their limited touring.  Before a re-release of their complete discography much of their work was extremely hard to come by even on the internet.  Much of it was on rare tapes and 7" splits shared with even more obscure bands in the scene.  Their songs were actually never even named so all track names that you find were actually given lovingly by fans of their work.  Thankfully this issue was solved with a 2006 release of Science, a collection of their various tracks.

What we find in Science after over a decade of wait is a lo fi tribute to loud/soft dynamics.  Most songs begin with soft instrumentals and whispers that build slowly, giving the listener a sense of something big on the horizon much like the calm before a violent storm.  Once the climax is reached the band begins to absolutely attack their instruments creating a gale force of screaming guitars and frenzied screams.  This style of combining gentle picking followed by cathartic chaos is emulated by bands such as Envy, Pianos Become the Teeth, and City of Caterpillar.  That my friends, is a pretty darn good lineage.

So check it out and learn your roots kids.

Download
-Jim

The Post Stays Up, Sorry DMCA.

Dr. Dog, while not unknowns by any means, have put out a couple of great albums that you just don't hear name-dropped amongst elitist hipster circles.

............Hm, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Shame Shame is the latest album from the group, and the follow-up to 2008's Fate, which just so happens to be one of my personal favorite albums.

On this record, it's more of the same old stuff you'd expect to hear on any of their records, though it lacks that certain 'wow' factor that Fate had throughout.

All in all, it's yet another solid record from a more than solid band that I'll be replaying over and over again into absurd hours of the night.

Try it

-Gio