Chris Fogal has a message for fellow musicians. On the song “Delusional,” Fogal tells his starry-eyed peers: “You will never know fame/You will never get signed.” Considering Fogal’s previous close calls with success, it would behoove up-and-comers to pay attention. The Gamits’ last record, 2004’s Antidote, was a highly touted…

If Lou Reed had lived in the ’30s and had an affinity for moonshine instead of heroin, he would sound dangerously close to the delicate rootsiness of what Chris Jeffries is creating. Combining the swagger of Mr. Reed with the bad-luck living and roaring fingerpicking of folk stalwarts like Lead…

A good chunk of Paper Bird’s new album has already been released. In the Internet age, this may not seem uncommon, but in the case of Paper Bird, it’s because five of the songs on When the River Took Flight (due to be issued on Friday, July 30, at the…

Bands like Tokyo Police Club are drastically changing the definition of the term “indie rock.” Sure, the group possesses the shrill, lightly distorted guitars and cutesy nice-guy vocals that have become synonymous with the genre, but when you’re a band as big as this one, the term “independent” really no…

Dualistics may have found the key to longevity. The only way to stay, as Tyler Despres points out on the aptly titled “Only Way to Stay,” is to “fan out,” which means leaving your options open without having to directly commit to anything. On Crimson, the band’s latest effort and…

From the title of their last EP, Bright, Bright, Bright, it’s clear that the members of Dark, Dark, Dark have a sense of humor. However, the lyrical content of that disc is no laughing matter, as vocalist Nona Marie Invie sings party-stopping lines like “You always cared for me, but…

Lust-Cats of the Gutters is a band whose roots are planted firmly in the same fertile soil as acts like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile and the Frumpies. Fiercely independent, the band has found itself being touted by Courtney Love and purportedly being courted by a certain Seattle-based record label. Even though…

Rhode Island’s Prayers for Atheists is a band with incendiary political convictions, the kind that can land dudes in jail. At the 2008 Republican National Convention, vocalist Jared Paul was arbitrarily arrested while covering the convention for quarterly publication The Agenda, and he and the rest of his bandmates have…

A journalist once made a prediction about Rooftop Vigilantes: “In a few years, they’ll make big waves, sign to a major label and then precipitously decline.” Looks like he might have been at least partially correct. The Lawrence, Kansas-based act’s latest album, Carrot Atlas, features enough hipster posturing and catchy…

Seattle based singer-songwriter Damien Jurado is reluctantly moving into the digital realm after a storied love affair with the analog world. Jurado, who once ran a cassette-only label during the ’90s called Casa Recordings that brought him to the attention of Sub Pop, recently released a track a day from…

If you plan on nodding your head to the beat of Solar Bear’s newest album, good fucking luck. Time signatures switch suddenly and unexpectedly throughout the six-song EP, creating oceans of frenzied, finger-stretching chaos before melting into beautiful and sprawling half-tempo breakdowns. The band, recently stripped down to a foursome,…

As musicians, the members of Kinetix have stellar chops. That much is clear just from hearing the band even once: These are some monster players. And the band’s latest album, Let Me In, recorded at the Blasting Room with Jason Livermore and produced by Flobot Andy Guerrero, does a great…

Ever been pelted in the face with anything before? Doesn’t matter what it is — snow, water, spitballs — it smarts a little, doesn’t it? So why would someone to allow himself to be blasted in the face with a paint cannon over and over and over and over again?…

When Nathaniel Rateliff was fronting Born in the Flood, his voice was strident, powerful and pensive. It was impressive, but not uniquely his own. On “Once in a Great While,” the opening track of his Rounder debut, an unblemished near-falsetto croon introduces the world to the new and improved Nathaniel…

Last year, the Bronx created a record that, without a doubt, is the best mariachi album of all time from musicians who also play in a Los Angeles-based hardcore punk band. Under the guise of Mariachi El Bronx, vocalist Matt Caughthran and his cohorts recorded eleven mariachi masterpieces devoid of…

“Parental Advisory. Explicit Content.” Remember that little sticker? The little black and white one that used to rest in the corner of only the most bad-ass of cassette tapes? The first albums I remember seeing with this warning were Danzig’s self titled album, Soundgarden’s Louder than Love and Guns and…

I can’t believe we lasted so long without a bass,” declares Tyler Breuer, the Knew’s guitarist, recalling the early days of the band when the low end wasn’t much of a consideration. “What were we thinking?” Evidently, they weren’t. And that’s actually been the secret to the band’s success so…