Poor Boston. Once Beantown was the crown jewel to alternative music, but now it finds itself cast aside the jetstream of Montreal to its northwest and New York City to its southeast for bragging rights amongst the Arcade Fires and Interpols. Enter Apollo Sunshine, labeled a
The Marxist funk is back. Not quite as funky, though. In fact, the
newly re-grouped Gang Of Four sounds a lot more garage these days.
It goes without saying that Nada Surf’s brand of punk-pop-rock should have them paired with today’s hot ticket melodic rock bands like Death Cab for Cutie and The Shins. Their latest release- The Weight is a Gift – may be their ticket back to the forefront.
As the opening minutes of Z pass by with nary a crashing cymbal or a ringing chord, impossible doubts seep in through the membrane of denial: Has My Morning Jacket become a keyboard band? Did the departed Johnny Quaid and Danny Cash rip the backbeating heart from My Morning Jacket
It
After years of mere subsistence on the scraps of electronic, jazz and rock influences, Baltimore
Plans fails to pick things up a notch in the rock department where Transatlanticism teased us in believing DCFC would be the next great experimental guitar band. There is a load of keyboard sap and wish washy ballads to deal that makes Plans a rather soft affair.
Maybe next time instead of recording in New England in the dead of winter, these west-coasters should stay in overcast Seattle and stick with a familiar formula. The true Death Cab sound is still here at times, but at the end Plans leaves you asking, “what is all the fuss about?”
Gentlemen, Daylight Tonight (Terminus) is the record you dreamed of making as pimple faced kids playing air guitar in the mirror while singing into your microphone combs.
