Raleigh’s Training Wheels EP is like an indie-rock artichoke: If you peel back the layers of influences, you’ll find quite a delectable core underneath. Listen closely and you’ll hear the trappings of Modest Mouse’s frayed exuberance as the outfit transmutes angst into fragmented melodies. There are also hints of Sunny…

When Adam Littles was in the Navy Girls, his signature guitar style helped establish that band’s unique sound. He carved out a niche with angular yet beautifully glittery guitar lines that fit within the act’s catchy rhythms. Around the time that group came to an end, Littles found an odd…

American Relay’s stripped-down, two-man approach to the blues isn’t particularly innovative. Nonetheless, the way the duo injects grit and earthy passion into the tired art form is refreshing. Nick Sullivan’s fiery vocal delivery is filled with the edgy danger that many have tried to approximate but few have attained. And…

One of the most amusing trends in the last few years has been the merging of Southern rock and so-called stoner rock. As if we needed the unholy union of Sleep and Molly Hatchet. And yet someone was bound to make it work without sounding like a pack of rednecks…

Boulder has long been known for spawning talented musical acts — and then inspiring them to move on to more welcoming climates. Maybe Chairlift didn’t exactly flee the People’s Republic seeking musical asylum, but it did relocate to Brooklyn. To call the act indie rock or synth pop is to…

Blue Million Miles emerged after the split of Small Objects in the fall of 2006. It was the classic case of a promising young band breaking up and a much stronger, more focused entity coming together. Weaving together strands of gritty space rock with insistent, jittery post-punk rhythms, Blue Million…

Kenny Chesney has performed some of the most unabashedly white-bread, defanged, middle-of-the-road pop music ever crafted. While his breakthrough album, 2004’s When the Sun Goes Down, may be soma for the undiscerning masses, the guy accomplished what he set out to do and never looked back. In a career more…

Opening with the bouncy, infectious “Ramona, Just the Other Day,” These Record Highs finds Breezy Porticos in the familiar mode of slipping smart, emotionally mature observations into finely crafted pop masterpieces. Pop music doesn’t need to be dumb or rife with cliches to be enjoyable, something Breezy Porticos proves in…

As the charismatic frontwoman of Blondie, Debbie Harry was more than just a dumb, photogenic singer crooning unforgettable new-wave pop songs. From her beginnings in the ’60s folk-rock act Wind in the Willows to her experimental, poppy post-Blondie albums, Harry has consistently proved herself to be a versatile artist with…

Lo-fi is sort of de rigueur in DIY indie rock, but when that affectation is used to cover up poor songwriting, it can be wearisome. Fortunately, Transistor Radio Sound’s Nick Houde isn’t lacking in that department. Throughout Squares, Transistor’s latest release, Houde and company take an array of sounds and…

For a few years there, it seemed that there would be no end to the stream of angsty, but not angry, suburban white-boy punks. How many times did you roll your eyes at all the pre-fab rebellion packaged neatly inside screaming harmonies? Out of that milieu, there were a few…

Earlier this year, Landlordland seemed to come to an abrupt end — especially considering what a formidable live act it had grown into. For frenetic frontman Darren Dunn, however, the band’s shelf life had long since expired. With nearly a decade under his belt, he and bandmate Sylas Cooley were…

Young Galaxy could easily be pegged as yet another dreamy space-rock band. But instead of opting for the distorted, frayed tones favored by many groups mining similar territory, the act aims more for the bright-edged grandeur (and borderline sappiness) of Secret Migration-era Mercury Rev. Formed by ex-Stars guitarist Stephen Ramsay…

Mothership is made up of a group of heady individuals, the type of musicians who are completely comfortable jamming out live on songs such as “Pink Lady Lemonade,” by Acid Mothers Temple. Although tracks like “Serious Coyote” perfectly capture the sweeping, mind-bending, full-on space-rock experience of Mothership’s incendiary live show,…

With the focused intensity of Friedrich Nietzsche, Tripp Nasty leads his avant chamber orchestra through a variety of classical musical styles. Instead of adhering to the compositions of yesteryear, though, Tripp composes and arranges his own music, which is reminiscent of Thin Blue Line-era Philip Glass and Glenn Branca. While…

Does anyone truly know what indie rock sounds like? While the term is as ubiquitious as alt-rock was over a decade ago, it can also be extremely nebulous. Even so, there’s one musician whose music embodies the designation: Sam Jayne, one of the primary architects of the aesthetic. In the…

As the frenetic frontwoman of Mannequin Makeout, Brittany Gould caterwauls like a riot grrrl and croons like Siouxsie Sioux. So it’s a bit surprising to listen to her work with her other project, Married in Berdichev, where she takes a turn as a more conventional vocalist. Make that slighty more…

If sleaze rock is the tongue-kissing cousin of heavy metal, then Nashville Pussy is Gene Simmons’s hillbilly stunt double. Led by the twin-guitar attack of husband and wife duo Blaine Cartwright and Ruyter Suys, the Atlanta-based act got its start glorifying Southern rock’s excesses in the late ’90s with songs…

Florida is probably the last place you’d expect to find a French-pop-influenced, trip-hop-tinged indie band. The place isn’t exactly a wellspring of sophisticated bohemian music. It’s much better known for churning out a seemingly endless supply of rap rock and crap rock. Nonetheless, that’s where the Postmarks hang their hats…

There probably aren’t too many people who remember Autonomous Collective, a poppy post-rock act that daringly explored a wide range of sounds with admirable dexterity. When that band eventually morphed into the Archive, the players solidified their sound into a compelling amalgamation of indie rock, progressive song structures and jazzy…

Contorted, distorted, six-string mayhem was the hallmark of Jennifer Herrema’s previous group, the influential Royal Trux. Deconstructing guitar rock and putting it back together in oddly fascinating ways, Trux played with such a devil-may-care attitude that it didn’t matter if its evocation of classic rock’s excesses seemed like some kind…

Okay, pretend Nirvana never forced hair bands into early retirement — it can be pretty bleak to think about. But if you listen to the recorded output of Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, you might hear something a little different. Not just soloing for the sake of showing off their…