Austin’s Okkervil River are, in the most overgeneralized and reductive fashion, under the all-encompassing “indie rock” umbrella. As much as I like to label myself a pop savant of sorts, I often try to downplay my love of, say, Iron & Wine around friends – that sort of thing smacks too often of that most dreaded of music fans, the snob who prefers pretentious music that you just can’t get down with, and as such I avoid it and we […]
Indie Rock
Wikked Hipstah: Animal Collective-How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love the Noise: Part 1
By all accounts, this discussion on Animal Collective should not have to exist. Understandably, the independent music community has opinions, and judging by the unencumbered plethora of music blogs that exist; these opinions will be far and away the most obnoxious and self-serving (ed. note: present company excluded, I hope). Why we like something is unequivocal to the purpose of understanding a sonic landscape in how it relates to our aural pleasure. Sometimes it just sounds good; a lot of the time, however, […]
Bon Iver Announces Tour Dates
Fresh off the news that he will be releasing a new album in June, indie favorite Bon Iver is hitting the road. Justin Vernon will be bringing an eight-piece band on the road with him for this, his biggest tour yet. As I’ve said before, I’m not totally on his team yet, but I recently picked up the album by Gayngs (not totally a Justin Vernon project, but he appears on a lot of it) and I think I might give […]
Moving Mountains Will Move You.
Album Reviews / Indie Rock / music / New Releases / rock music / Support Good Music in 2011 / Videos
If you thought the last few Thrice albums lacked that certain somethin’ somethin’ or you yearn for the days when The Receiving End of Sirens still put out music then Moving Mountains latest album, Waves, is for you. Their first for Triple Crown, Waves is a triumph through and through. Waves is such a departure for Moving Mountains , yet not. If you listen to Pneuma and this back-to-back it’s like two different bands. This isn’t a bad thing (And Pneuma did come out […]
New Release Report 5/3/11: Beastietude
The week’s biggest news is certainly the release of Hot Sauce Committee, Part II , the Beastie Boys’ first non-instrumental album in six years. The longest-running hit making rap act in history, this album has gotten universally solid reviews, proving that Mike D., Ad-Rock and MCA have not lost their mojo even in their mid-forties. However, it’s far from the only thing going on in a crowded new release week. The Beasties will likely be vying for the #1 spot on the album charts with […]
The New Blerd Radio-Episode 3: May Flowers (Almost)
Episode 3 is in the books and on our latest podcast, Mike and Jesse discuss pop culture events including the new Beastie Boys album and video, Lady GaGa’s continued stranglehold on pop culture, and the debut of “The Voice”. Also discussed: “Fast 5” (which is out today) and it’s pretty cast, May’s potpourri of album releases, why no one should ever watch the first 10 minutes of “Up” , the rumored follow-up to “Garden State”, and Jesse gets the package […]
Dan The Automator and Dredg Make Beautiful Music Together
Dredg has lost me over the past few albums. I’ve been a fan since Leitmotif and El Cielo but when they released Catch Without Arms, it seemed like they had lost a little of that magic that made me appreciate them in the first place. While El Cielo was their first major label release, they didn’t really begin a shift in sound until Catch Without Arms. To their credit, the demos that came out before Catch sounded amazing (It’s called Coquette, […]
Is There a New Modest Mouse Album on the Way??
It’s been four years since Modest Mouse released a full-length album (the excellent We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank), and while the band has toured pretty exhaustively as recently as last year, fans like me are still foaming at the mouth for new music from Isaac Brock, Johnny Marr and company. Well, there’s been no official announcement of a new album yet, but there are signs that point towards new music being made. Check out this video interview […]
Bon Iver? Meet “Bon Iver”
Not totally sure I’m on team Bon Iver yet, but this site isn’t called “What the Blerd Likes”, so I’m here to give y’all the news whether my socks are getting knocked off or not. I will say that the multiple guest appearances on Kanye’s excellent My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy have put Justin Vernon and crew on my radar a lot more than he/they were before. I checked out For Emma, Forever Ago a couple months ago and just […]
New Release Report 4/12/11: A “So Beautiful” List of Releases
After a bit of a hiccup, the surprisingly robust release schedule that’s been par for the course these past few weeks is back. If you’re a rock fan, you obviously know that the Foo Fighters’ Wasting Light hits stores today (reminder: we’ve reviewed it). This album reunites Butch Vig with Dave Grohl for the first time in nearly twenty years, reunites Dave Grohl with Krist Novocelic for the first time on record since Kurt Cobain’s suicide, and also reunites Pat […]
Wikked Hipstah, Kid!: Sigur Ros’ “Takk”
The concept behind Sigur Ros is simple. They are a traditional and modern band in thesense that they write and record albums at an increasingly dramatic pace and millions of listeners worldwide buy their records. Lyrically, the songs themes range from the simplistic [Hopping in Puddles] to the ethereal[Sleepwalkers], from the new [The First Song] to the old [The Death Song]. Most of thesesongs follow a traditional verse-chorus-bridge pattern and each of Sigur Ros’ 5 LPs are amanageable forty-five to […]
The Viewfinder: TV on the Radio’s “Will Do”
It’s taken me a bit of time to really appreciate TV on the Radio musically. Aesthetically, as a largely black band playing music that’s not traditionally “black”, they’ve intrigued me from jump. Ultimately, though, I thought Return to Cookie Mountain (which the music press completely jizzed over) was OK. I actually didn’t buy the follow up, Dear Science, when it came out, although a friend hooked me up with a copy and it was (to my ears) a pretty vast […]