If you missed Vol. 1, best to start there, with new singles from Young Man, Joey Ramone (posthumously), The Danks, Blue Foundation, Dope Body, Dreamers, and others. Best New Releases for the Week of May 22nd, Vol. II, kicks off this week with the title track from Exitmusic‘s new album, Passage is epic-sounding, emotive and noisy, but a song that would fit well on a summer playlist.
“Passage” – Exitmusic from Passage on Secretly Canadian
Hallelujah The Hills Come Back with New LP
Next, Hallelujah The Hills – a band to watch on IRC back in 2009 – dropped their sophomore LP, No One Knows What Happens Next. The band have switched up their sound from their earlier orchestral pop to a more indie rock sound, another indication that the craze of orchestra pop of the past few years is losing some of its luster, even though we still think the genre has a lot to offer, and gave us some of the best music of the past decade. The band have opened for artists like Silver Jews, Titus Andronicus, Broken Social Scene, and Okkervil River.
“Get Me in a Room” – Hallelujah the Hills from No One Knows What Happens Next on Discrete Pageantry Records
New To Us: Shrouded Strangers, Witch, JBM, Cory Branan
Isn’t it cool when you hear a band for the first time and you dig their sounds? That happens all the time – in fact every week, mainly via the Best new Releases series, there are new-to-us artists and bands that we just like; it’s not even necessary, and time is a limited thing, to analyze always why. If you like a song, or an artist, you just do. Seems pretty simple.
The next two new-to-us bands definitely have their place in this week’s new releases series. Not everyone will like every song of course, but the New To Us section is aimed at giving more artists visibility, and letting people decide for themselves, and in doing so, we learn more what IRC listeners like. Still, each song has to pass the initial “ear test,” if you will. One of the great things about the concept of ‘indie rock,’ at least as we’ve come to know it, and despite its varying definitions (American Idol is not indie rock), is the huge umbrella of genres that fall under it.
Someone could, and some have, go through the past three years of the archives and build a gigantic MP3 collection for free. And with the Top Ten mixes from 2010, 2011 and 2012 pages alone (there’s a few weeks delay in the lists to analyze web stats), you could just start up the built-in Yahoo player and stream for hours and hours music pick by other listeners. Many listeners like that feature, but unlike other sites were you can stream, people can also download free and legal MP3s of the songs they like right on the page. we do it ourselves all the time, as well as with many other playlists on the site, and rediscover songs we totally love but either forgot about them or just had not heard them for a long time. That said, here are more singles from new releases that dropped this past week.
“(Don’t Look At The) Pink Lightning” – Shrouded Strangers from Lost Forever on Trade Root / Izniz
“Introduction” – Witch from Introduction and In The Past on Now Again Records
“Only Now” – JBM from Stray Ashes on Western Vinyl
“Bad Man” – Cory Branan from MUTT on Bloodshot Records
“The Mayor” – Dubious Ranger from Found Recordings From The Panda Valley Mining Company
SoundCloud Tracks This Week: Modern Time Machines, Gossip and Still Flyin’
SoundCloud tracks go last because they don’t work with the Yahoo Media Player we use to make it easy for people to stream entire playlists all at once and without interruption. Hopefully, record labels will start realizing that they’re going to get a lot more free publicity by providing .mp3 links instead of SoundCloud embeds. We know for a fact that artists whose songs we post with SoundCloud boxes don’t get played or passed around as much as those who provide .mp3 links (hint, hint).
Anyways, this week’s SoundCloud embeds from new releases include fresh tracks from Modern Time Machines, Gossip and Still Flyin’.
“Lucky Lady” – Modern Time Machines from Continuity Girl
Lucky Lady by moderntimemachines
“Travelin’ Man” – Still Flyin’ from On a Bedroom Wall