Category: Indie Artist/Group Profiles

Malone had already released the ramshackle-like song “Give Blood” a few weeks back, and now follows up with the track “Smiling Black Faces,” a condemnation of the 2006 shooting of Sean Bell by NYC police officers. Thanks to Pitchfork for this one.

Todd Goldstein, guitarist for Brooklyn’s Harlem Shakes, has a new single, “Kids Aflame,” the title track off his debut album with his moonlighting band, ARMS. Apparently, the album developed from a “lo fi bedroom project,” and is slated for US release on Gigantic Music (The Walkmen, Harlem Shakes).

Iconic geek pop veterans and jingle-jangle enthusiasts They Might Be Giants are back with a new album Here Comes Science. The new album follows a familiar theme of the band’s music in past years – pop music with an academic slant, and particularly aimed at children.

The prolific Welsh band, Los Compesinos!, are back with a new single from a rumored 2010 new album. The new song, “The Sea is a Good Place to Think about the Future,” is a story about a pretty but too thin girl who takes pills to drown the sorrow of her late mother’s untimely death. The dark sound features Sigur Ros-like guitar licks, and is accompanied by this video.

Canadian indie rockers Two Hours Traffic just released a new album, Territory, from which the title track is featured here. Throw Me The Statue has released a second song from their excellent recent release, Createsque. Johannesburg’s indie rock band BLK JKS‘ (pronounced ‘Black Jacks’) new single “Molalatladi,” and a track off The Dutchess and The Duke new release, are also featured in this playlist.

“Smiling Black Faces” – Rain Machine from Rain Machine (2009)

“Kids Aflame” – ARMS from s/t debut (release unavailable)

“I Am a Paleontologist” – They Might Be Giants from Here Comes Science (2009)

“The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future” – Los Campesinos!, released as single (2009)

“Territory” – Two Hours Traffic from Territory (2009)

“Ancestors” – Throw Me The Statue from Creaturesque (2009)

“Molalatladi” – BLK JKS from After Robots (2009)

“Hands” – The Dutchess and The Duke from Here (2009)

Coming Up Next: Songs from new LPs, EPs and singles by Good Night States, A.A Bondy, Calypso, Extraperlo, Rubies, The Clean, Adam Semerdjian and others. You can grab the Indie Rock Cafe feed anytime to get reviews, playlists, releases, band profiles and more any way you want.

Popular Posts in the past week featuring free, legal MP3 downloads:

– New Release from ex-Concretes’ vocalist Victoria Bergsman band Taken By Trees

– Ears To The Music, Vol. I – Songs from COYB, The Love Language, Firs, The Very Most and more.

– Fresh Tracks from Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Dr. Dog, South Ambulance, Fanfarlo and another playlist from The Raveonettes, Why/Themselves, These United States and many others.

It’s always nice when a talented new indie band emerges with a style all of their own. Los Angeles band Black Them Boots‘ debut album Fancy delivers an intriguing, melodic stream of witty, up-tempo songs that mix indie pop and alternative rock with folk and post punk influences.

Taking their name from a verse in a “ring-play folk song”, Black Them Boots was formed by singer and songwriter Larry Corte and guitarist Pat Martin during the summer of 2006. The duo’s initial folk rock project gradually morphed into the distinct sound they have today. Part of the evolution of the band’s music comes from the confinement and boredom Corte struggled with following a serious snowboarding accident in 2007. With little else to do but wait for his injuries to heal, Corte found an outlet in his songwriting. Following his recovery, bassist Mark Waters and drummer Chris Fischer joined the band to record the songs for Fancy.

The result is an album full of attention grabbing, enjoyable music, as evident on the alt rock songs “Don’t Look Back”, “A Horse On A Hill” and “Locked Up”. The main elements of the band’s unique style – witty and ironic lyrics (mostly revolving around love), ambient guitar riffs, thick, thumpy bass lines and driving drum beats – are also evidenced on songs like “It Feels A Lot Like Love” and the post-punk revivalist track “One Way”(which sounds like the Brit rock band Editors).

The do-do-do choruses and lighthearted pop melodies of “Dear Darling” provide another twist, and yet another opportunity, for Corte to sneak in his jaded view of love: “Oh yeah that’s my heart on my sleeve, you stab, you jab, you poke at me,” the song goes; followed only seconds later by: “I have an angel on my mind, if you’re not her, don’t waste my time. I have a demon trapped inside, if you’re an angel, it will hide.”

One of the album’s stand out tracks – “Scar” – touches on the wounds of love, but it is delivered with such upbeat sarcasm and optimistic defiance that it’s easy to miss the misery that exists between the lines of the song’s lyrics. This is a common theme on BTB’s debut; even the record’s last song, a cover version of the otherwise somber (but with a silver lining?) Daniel Johnston “True Love Will Find You In The End,” has an uplifting, even cheerful, spin to it.

The band’s musical influences include The Pixies, Gang of Four, Weezer, Nirvana, Cake, Pavement and Sonic Youth, among others. Black Them Boots have played shows in Los Angeles, where the band has a growing fan base. Now they’re ready to take on the rest of the country with a month long tour (August 6 – Sept. 3) throughout the west and midwest. Fancy is a great debut from a promising band that I suspect we will be hearing more about in the years to come; that is, if heartbreak doesn’t kill them first.

“Don’t Look Back” – Black Them Boots from Fancy (2009)

“Dear Darling” – Black Them Boots from Fancy (2009)

Bonus Track: “True Love Will Find You In The End” (Daniel Johnston) – Black Them Boots from Fancy (2009)

Official website: www.blackthemboots.com

MySpace page: www.myspace.com/blackthemboots

Learn about more bands and listen to more music from the In Dee Mail playlist series.

Australian rock band Children Collide. (photo from LifeLounge)

Every once and a while a band blasts out of Australia and lands on U.S. soil to make their mark on the rock scene. Melbourne’s Children Collide first blazed a smoking trail on rock radio Down Under that is still smoldering. Now, as they wrap up their first-ever, and from all accounts, successful, U.S. tour this month, the band is gearing up for next month’s Australian tour with Jane’s Addiction.

The band’s new album, The Long Way, was released last month in the U.S. Children Collide got their first real exposure in the U.S. at 2007’s South By Southwest conference in Austin. The band has been compared to Nirvana, Fugazi, Sonic Youth and The Vines, among other popular rock bands.

The Long Way was produced by Dave Sardy (Dandy Warhols, Oasis, Wolfmother, Jet) and so far its lead single, “Social Currency”, has been played more than 125,000 times on the band’s MySpace page. Children Collide’s publicist describes the “disco-political” track as “a slap in the face to the pseudo-cool club kids with a dose of rock-n-roll reality.” Other notable songs on the album include the riveting “Chosen Armies”, the catchy “Brave Robot” and the dark appeal of “Skeleton Dance”. The album was originally released in Australia last fall.

While alternative rock has suffered a setback in recent years – partly due to the saturation of indie pop – band members Johnny MacKay (vocals/guitar), Heath Crawley (bass) and Ryan Caesar (drums) are doing their part to keep it alive and kicking.

“Social Currency” – Children Collide from The Long Way (2009)

“Chosen Armies” – Children Collide from The Long Way (2009)

Check out Children Collide on MySpace and a new ‘how-you-want-to-see-it’ video of “Chosen Armies” from the official website for Children Collide.

The band’s upcoming shows:

June 26 – Philadelphia, PA – Khyber
June 27 – Allston, MA – Harpers Ferry
June 28 – New York, NY – Mercury Bar
June 29 – Washington, DC – DC9

Herm might not be the best moniker for a relatively unknown but talented musician, but the one man band comprised of Dubliner Kevin Connolly has already made his mark with a debut album of contemporary, in-your-face indie pop that includes some sweet indie gems.

Herm’s debut album, Monsters, features a collection of crafty songs that are as diverse in sound as they are brilliant in production. The opening track, “That Way”, sounds like a song that belongs in a modern western film with its choruses of “bah-ooh” that sounds like Johnny Cash wrangling with Built To Spill.

Just when you think the cavalry might come galloping in to save the day, the next song, “Heads” the first UK radio single from the album, delivers a cheerful and bouncy contrast. But the bopping sound of “Heads” cleverly disguises its otherwise odd lyrics that seem to suggest cannibalism. It even seems as if the subject himself finds solace in his own demise, if that’s what this is all about:

“Step one rub me down with grease
step two cook me in the fire
Step three; cut me into pieces
eat me when I’m done”

With its nearly irresistible charm enhanced by the music video (below), “Heads” manages to have a quirky appeal that makes it memorable and refreshing.

Monsters, which was recorded over several months in various abodes around Ireland, takes the listener on a journey through changing landscapes of styles, from quirky pop to saddle-slapping blues, and emotions, from anger to gloom.

In April, the track, “Year Of The Horse” received an honorable mention in the prestigious International Song Competition. That’s an impressive accomplishment considering the judges themselves included rock legends Ray Davies of The Kinks, Robert Smith of The Cure and Tom Waits.

The track “Rosemary” is a bright, upbeat song, but like “Heads” apparently masks
a more disturbing and confused message. At once he’s talking about some girl that “never looked so good” as when she is “screwing someone else” but it “makes me so mad.” While Herm’s music can be infectious at times, the content of his messages are dark. Other times it’s hard to know what he’s trying to say. Are these metaphors we have here or just muddled lyrics?

Some of the songs were recorded with The Hermanos, a band Connolly still performs with at live shows. Apparently, when Connolly went solo, he shortened Hermanos (which means brothers in Spanish) to Herm.

Monsters, while it has its faults (mostly a lack of an overall concept), is still an excellent debut album, especially considering it was written, performed and produced by a relatively new and unknown singer-songwriter. It’ll be interesting to see where Herm’s journey takes him next.

“Heads” – Herm from Monsters (2009)

“Year Of The Horse” – Herm (with Nina Hynes) from Monsters (2009)

“The Way” – Herm from Monsters (2009)

Influences: Tom Waits, Pavement, White Stripes, Beck, Radiohead
Favorite albums: Tom Waits’ Bone Machine, The Beatles’ Abbey Road, Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.

Niko is not your stereotypical Nashville recording artist. He’s from Greece, doesn’t really play country music and he recently rejected a major record label offer so that he could make his music available online for free.