Annabel have released an EP, Here We Are Tomorrow, to follow up on their 2009 debut album Each And Everyone.  It’s a lot of fuzzy noise, like all the good alt-rock out of the 1990s. It’s much less accessible than the band’s earlier work, and I mean that in the best way possible.  Prior releases were [...]

If you like tough-sounding songs with great one-liners like, “I like to get high as a mountain when I’m crumbling to my knees,” then Tim Barry’s 2010 release—his third album—is for you.  28th and Stonewall is 12-songs of pure countrypunk bliss. It is muscular, honest, earnest and gritty.  It’s ballsy and brassy, bluesy and boozy.  [...]

The hardest part about doing these end of the year lists is that I know as soon as I publish it, someone will suggest (or I’ll otherwise find) an album that shoulda been here. With that caveat, I proceed. But before saluting artists on labels without “big money backing,” major label push, and attendant RIAA-enforcement, [...]

In a year where my favorite retro wierdos Nobunny released an album, it hurts to receive Jeff The Brotherhood‘s album for review.  Why?  Because it’s so damn good, but so damn similar.  No, the songs aren’t all under three minutes and the vocals aren’t hypermodulated, but there’s a similar garagepunkgrunge sound–a filthy, rowdy, fuckall attitude [...]

Okay, WTF.  I don’t know anything about the band that appears to call themselves “Apache, The,” other than the fact that they’re from Utah.  Utah?!  And there are four of them.  And all of the songs on what appears to be their debut are named after people and dates.  Like “Ed Templeton or Rodney Mullen [...]

I love the title of the latest album by Australia’s Eddy Current Suppression Ring: Rush to Relax.  Not just because of the obvious irony, but because it so thoroughly, so accurately summarizes this band’s laid-back fast-punk sound. Lead singer Brendan Suppression sings with a forceful squeal-yell, but he never sounds urgent.  A little hurried, perhaps, [...]

Nobunny‘s “Love Visions” was the 12th best album of 2008.  No shit.  And I still have no idea who the fuck they are. Their Wiki page is hilarious, and it reads their current line up as: Nobunny – Vocals, rhythm guitar Touchy Tony – Vocals, bass guitar Elvis Christ – Vocals, drums, lead guitar Danaheim [...]

“Someday soon you’ll be on fire/Ask me for a glass of water/I’ll say noooooo/Let that shit burn/And you’ll say/Please please please put me out/I promise not to do again/Whatever I did to you . . .”  This is the opening line on the opening song (“Someday Soon”) of Harlem‘s Matador debut, “Hippies.”  Does the title [...]