“RyBro” finds Helvetia continuing their nod to gritty 90s psychedelic experimentation. Weighty guitars are backed by a hefty organ and laid-back, lazy summer guitar riffs, all of it fronted by hazy, dreamy garage-style vocals.
Read More »Helvetia: RyBro MP3 
Carrousel is not a band you’d expect to hail from Tallahassee. That’s ludicrous. They sound like they should hail from Paris, Glasgow, or somewhere exotic. Why, you might ask?Carrousel’s music can be described as the thoughtful romantic marriage of dream-pop and orchestral folk. Read More »Carrousel: Feature
Sera Cahoone is back with a new LP on Sub Pop called Deer Creek Canyon, and with the announce of the new album comes a song from it. With “Naked”, Cahoone sounds more confident and self-aware than what we’ve heard in the past — even the phenomenal title track to Only As The Day is Long. Read More »Sera Cahoone: Naked MP3
Harlem’s Hippies from 2010 was ultimately one of my favorite albums of the year. It’s garage rock/pop was all you want from the genre: gritty, grungy, crude, and entirely raw. Almost too a fault. It’s what made it so good. Well Lace Curtains is the new band of Michael Coomer, vocalist of Harlem. Read More »Lace Curtains: Feature
White Blood Cells is a new band out of Vancouver, BC featuring members of Wintermitts, The Ruffled Feathers, occasionally Hot Panda, and many more. The band just released their first single, a song called “Ai! Ai! Ai! Ai!” and it is filled with modern, cheery indie pop. Read More »White Blood Cells: Ai! Ai! Ai! Ai! MP3
Echo Lake was originally formed by Thom Hill and Linda Jarvis, then expanded to include a full, five-piece band. The group just released their debut LP, Wild Peace, via Slumberland Records on June 26. On it, classic dreamy indie pop clashes with reverb-filled, synth-based shoegaze. Read More »Echo Lake: Feature
Young Moon is San Francisco’s Trevor Montgomery, and his new LP, Navigated Like The Swan is out later this month on Western Vinyl. The press release notes that Swan is “an exceptional record that is a grower.” I can’t argue with that; it certainly is. Read More »Young Moon: Feature
There’s fuel here, power and angst. Unnatural Helpers is back with a new track called “Hate Your Teachers” and they… Read More »Unnatural Helpers: Hate Your Teachers MP3
And like that, half the year is gone. For the doomsdayists, that means less than half a year until it all comes crashing to an end. In light of being prepared, I picked up a new little toy this last week: a beastly, black on black 1979 El Camino. The thing has a 350 V8, gets terrible gas milage but is in great condition. It growls and twists its body when you hit the accelerator. It makes you tingle. Read More »Fense’s Radio Show: June 29, 2012
I quite enjoyed Easter Island‘s previous release, Better Things, but it didn’t stun me. What I mean by that is that while it was by all means very good, it wasn’t as gripping as one would hope. Well the band is back with Frightened, a new LP, and it doesn’t suffer the same fate. Both are solid works, but Frightened has staying power. And it’s tracks like “Hash” that give it that. Read More »Easter Island: Hash
