U.S. Royalty – Into The Thicket

We last featured Washington DC based band U.S. Royalty back in Febraury 2011, and it is good to welcome them back with their new track Into The Thicket. It has a touch of the Lumineers about it – being a big-hearted, tender folk tune delivered with a mixture of fingerpicked harmonies and vocal fervour that is all to rarely seen (or heard) nowadays. It manages to convey … Continue reading U.S. Royalty – Into The Thicket

Videos of the Day: Catfish & The Bottlemen || Shovels & Rope || Brilliant Beast || Sweet Gum Tree || Dinosaur Bones

Plenty to enjoy today as our videos come from boisterous up and coming indie-rockers Catfish & The Bottlemen, the punked-up raw country of Shovels & Rope, and the fuzzed up psychedelia and krautrock from Brilliant Beast. We also have the refined, vintage pop of Sweet Gum Tree featuring MM fave Isobel Campbell, and lastly the dark pop and grandiose hooks of Dinosaur Bones. Fill yer boots. . . … Continue reading Videos of the Day: Catfish & The Bottlemen || Shovels & Rope || Brilliant Beast || Sweet Gum Tree || Dinosaur Bones

New Savaging Spires Album

In typical Savaging Spires fashion we were sent a Soundcloud link and very little else (i.e. nothing at all) to herald their new long player We Should Be Dead Together. From what little we have been able to glean, the album consists of eleven new tracks and will be released as a limited CD at the end of this month and out in January in … Continue reading New Savaging Spires Album

Mad Mackerel Recommends…The Parmesans

Sitting somewhere between the traditional Americana of the Milk Carton Kids, and the drifters folk tales of Woody Guthrie, The Parmesans are a string trio from California specialising in complex, Doc Watsonesque guitar picking, harmonious mandolin lead, good ‘ol honky tonkin’ bass lines and all with an emphasis on tight three part vocal harmonies. Their album Wolf Eggs (with its excellent cover art) is a live … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends…The Parmesans

Introducing >>> Vienna Ditto

We’ve been desperately trying to clear our backlog of e-mails before the start of the festive period proper and all those end of year Best Of posts start. Vienna Ditto have sat, undiscovered by us, for the best part of two months – until now. Their recent 3-track EP, Ugly, blends their country blues and gospel influences with primitive ‘voodoo electronics’ and clattering junk percussion … Continue reading Introducing >>> Vienna Ditto

Videos of the Day: Beachwood Sparks || September Girls || Talmud Beach || DZ Deathrays || Wild Ones || Caravan Of Thieves

We have no less than six excellent videos and songs to help you begin to welcome in the weekend. First up is Beachwood Sparks and their 70s inspired home footage homage is a perfect fit for track Make It Together. By way of contrast, the video for fuzzed-up indie rockers, September Girls new single Heartbeats, draws on influences of old Hammer Horrors and photographers such Ryan McGinley and … Continue reading Videos of the Day: Beachwood Sparks || September Girls || Talmud Beach || DZ Deathrays || Wild Ones || Caravan Of Thieves

Howe Gelb – The Coincidentalist

Howe Gelb has been picking up some stellar reviews for new album The Coincidentalist, which saw a release earlier this month on the 5th November, via the excellent New West Records label. The album features an all-star cast of musician friends: Bonnie “Prince” Billy, M. Ward, KT Tunstall, Andrew Bird and Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, and is a brilliantly unhurried, melodic collection of lysergic desert-folk. … Continue reading Howe Gelb – The Coincidentalist

David Bronson Gives Away Animals

We posted the video for the reflective, and rather lovely, Incompetent Assassin earlier this week, and now New York singer-songwriter David Bronson is giving away a free download of his track Animals. It is taken from his recently released album The Long Lost, and he says it is a song “about accountability and the opposing forces of recklessness and restraint that fight within each of us…it’s … Continue reading David Bronson Gives Away Animals