Better Lives sees the band under the seasoned direction of Jon Auer, co-founder of Seattle’s The Posies and reunion-era member of original power pop mavens Big Star. Auer co-produced, mixed the record, and even duets with Rosenfarb, bringing his sharp pop sensibilities to a heavier affair overall. The result is a striking, more thought-out album, sonically adventurous while still wholly melodic. Lyrically, hopes co-mingle with disappointment, abandonment with reconciliation, discontent with euphoria, and of course…a song about missing your cat while on tour. And with Better Lives, Feral Conservatives continue their thoughtful, often satirical and self-depreciating music videos that have become a hallmark of the band.
Dane Joneshill is a Searcy local who released his debut album on January. 19th, 2018. “Everything That Rises Must Converge” is a breathtaking work of art. It is an album to get lost in. Each song is tender and true, and can inspire you to see goodness in the hard times. “I hope that anyone can listen to the songs and at least feel two things,” Joneshill said. “I hope they can say, ‘I’m not totally alone’ and ‘There’s a hope worth at least looking for. They can at least hope that there is hope.”
“I’ve been writing songs for 20 years and have always waited to make an album,” Joneshill said. “Something about now felt like the right time. I could not hang onto those songs anymore.” Joneshill has created an album that is intimate and pure for a stunning debut. Each song is created with passion, goodness and an outstanding amount of talent. “I think in some ways the record was just the most empathetic thing I could do, just extend it to people and go, ‘I hope that things will be better. I hope that somehow it will come back together in something else that is beautiful and helpful, That was the theme in the back of my head as I wrote songs the last few years.”
“A lot of them are about the struggles peoples find themselves in sometimes, not knowing how to wrestle their experience with pain, Joneshill said. “Hopefully that is there in all of these stories, people wrestling with that, looking for the light and just trying to hang on.” .“What will you do with your wild and precious life?” is the first line of the song “Fragments.” The song is about one character wondering about what he has done with his life. He had all of these things he wanted and intended to do and places he wanted to go. But life chips away at him. He gets surrounded by darkness and ends up feeling like he’s nothing. One night he sleeps and he dreams all of these grand and hopeful aspirations, realizing he still has things to hold onto. “I thought that was a beautiful picture of just hanging on,” Joneshill said.
Dane Joneshill is a talented storyteller. This track grabs listeners with its engaging narrative immediately. Armed with a classic piano, slide guitar, and cello, he creates one hell of a track. He is classic Americana, through and through. There is something for everyone on this track as the talented artist croons. His influences are expansive and exciting. We love this track on so many levels and believe you will too. It’s catchy gospel tinged climax is something special too.
Lights down, curtain up, flickering camera on: this is the world of The Projector. A handcrafted album of lone guitars echoing in the twilight, nocturnal electronics and woodsy vocals in which you can hear and feel the grain. Of scenes and moods, shouts and cries and pleas, interweaving narratives lovingly birthed in Simone native woods, not far from the Kaaterskill Creek upon which he himself was born.
The stunning album opener and title track of the The Projector “Spectral”, almost skeletal at first, before the mans resonant voice and spartan guitar are joined by shiversome choral vocals from Bat For Lashes Natasha Khan and haunted folktronica from London this genre-surfing experimentalist Four Tet. The track is a hallucinatory walk through the backrooms and hallways of modern human paranoia and tech-induced loneliness, as the warped choir sings: All the while you felt so alone/but all the while there were bugs in the phone and you were not alone.
Have you Listened to the propulsive indie-rock of Cool Ghouls, and their wonderfully wholesome Animal Races LP (Melodic Records). It’s actually been eighteen months since its summer 2016 release, and, as such, the band have a new track “CCR Bootleg” is both a perfectly-timed return, and an energetic reminder of their craft.
Taken from a new Post Trash’s new compilation – Volume 3 – this gleaming new cut will sit alongside tracks from the likes of Pardoner, Christina Schneider, Bad History Month, and many others, while all benefits will be donated to Puerto Rico hurricane relief. Rowdy and rambunctious, CCR Bootleg is a skittering four-minutes, showcasing the punkier side of the band, that boisterous lead-vocal backing up a suitably solid-but-slack backline that adds a distinct and palpable air of city living, from the he daily clamour, to the surrounding hedonism of such a thing.
Listen to the track below right now; it precedes a full European tour which starts in mid-February
Using guitars, vocals and sparse electronic elements, Prism Tats pulls from various visual and musical inspirations to create waking dream sub-realities that devastate and elate. Prism Tats is the musical moniker of Garett van derSpek, who’s originally from South Africa but now based in LA. He released his self-titled debut album in 2016, followed by last year’s 11:11 EP, and he’s notably opened shows for such indie vets as Guided by Voices and Nada Surf. He’s now set to release a new full-length, Mamba, on March 2 via ANTI-Records, which was produced by Chris Woodhouse, who’s worked with Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, The Intelligence, and others.
Like the other bands Woodhouse works with, Prism Tats channels classic garage rock with a knack for pop hooks and a bit of psychedelia. You can hear that for yourself on Mamba‘s lead single “Daggers,”
The new album ‘Mamba’ comes out 03.02.18 via ANTI- Records.
50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t be Wrong is the debut by Alabama-raised, now Austin-based Caroline Sallee, aka Caroline Says. After college Sallee took a job as a waitress in Yellowstone as an exercise in solitude and independence. With the money she saved there, she took a transformative journey via Greyhound to explore the West Coast before returning to Alabama where she would record her debut album in her parents’ basement. 50 Million puts us in the seat right next to Sallee where we can feel the warm West Coast light through the window, the bus route charting the lines between our youth, and our delayed future. These kinds of debuts can sometimes feel like an over-promise of what is to come, but in the case of Caroline Says there’s clearly plenty more thread to be unraveled. It’ll be a pleasure to see where the next bus ride takes us.
Lovely Bad Things are a quintet from the California town of La Mirada, a place the band describe as, “a fitting place to find solace in music”.The band offer a DIY-take on early 90’s rock, fusing layered melodious vocals with a vicious three-pronged guitar assault and powerful rhythm section. Having honed their sound for the best part of eight years, Lovely Bad Things released EP Homebodied this year sharing the debut single of the single, Hiding To Nothing.
With its prominent rolling basslines, arsenal of jangling guitar tones, and heavily beaten drums,finds the potent middle ground between the alt-rock of Dinosaur Jr and the poppy melodies of The Goon Sax. The stars of the show are the contrasting vocals lines, Camron Ward’s easy-going Stephen Malkmus-like delivery set against LaurenCurtius’ powerfully melodic tones – The Pixies comparisons are as accurate as they are predictable. A band who’ve taken their time to perfect their sound, Lovely Bad Things now emerge as a thrilling prospect, and with a full length release and European tour to come they are a band who might just be.
Willie Breeding hurts to listen to (in a good way, of course). The hooks of this Kentucky native’s songs cut immediately and don’t let up until the last note.This newcomer Willie Breeding will release his debut album of beguiling, off-kilter Americana Big Sky in early 2018.Willie’s remarkably good sorrow-laden voice is bait, and we are hungry fish. The arrangements are sumptuous and beautifully thought out – with haunting pedal steel, mandolin, fiddle and even the occasional Spanish horn melding with piano, a taut rhythm section and acoustic & electric guitars “- –
Written by: Willie Breeding and Caitlin Rose
Produced by: Duane Lundy and Willie Breeding
Guitars: Jeremy Fetzer
Keys and Bass: Jon Estes
Drums: Jon Radford
Strings: Mark Evitts
Los Angeles trio DWNTWN released their debut album Racing Time in July via Jullian Records and today we are sharing with you the album’s first single, “Bloodshot Eyes.” “...catchy melancholy pop with twinkling electronics that could be sung by thousands during a festival twilight in the near future.”
It’s a track that takes a page out of the nostlagic rock of the 80s, finding a Cure-like groove that sense of wonder that adds some glossy vocals and guitar riffs to make it a very pleasant and memorable listen that speaks well for the rest of the record.
Take a listen to “Bloodshot Eyes” below and if you like what you hear, check out the album.
’“Strangers” is one of the first songs I wrote for the new album,” Nashville based Katie Herzig explains.“Over time I fell in love with the simplicity and chillness of this song and wanted it to be the first on my record. Lyrically it digs into that vague feeling of discontentment that can chase us around in life, even when we have every reason to be content. I think when I wrote this song I was finding my way through that heaviness, but what I loved most about the song is that it felt like it knew how to get to me the other side of it. It gave me comfort over and over again as I worked on it and listen to it now.” Moment of Bliss is her sixth album and it shows. Her dynamic songwriting and maturity shines in “Strangers”. Recently, the criminally underexposed Herzig even gained an Emmy nomination for her song “Morse Code” that was created for the Netflix series “The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show”. The Nashville artist has a rare gift of connecting with multiple audiences and generations. If you’ve not listened to her sound yet, do not delay in listening to such a talented artist in the midst of her best work.
The Fat Angel Sings 