Abner Trio

Boosted by a fearless, punch-you-in-the-face positivity that is both rare and refreshing, Abner Trio mash tumbling guitar lines, bewildering arrangements, and idiot-savant-spoken-word into songs that (amazingly) sound a lot like pop music. Beneath the weirdness, the music of Abner Trio contains an unwavering and highly developed pop-sensibility, brought to the forefront by their densely layered and meticulously arranged vocal melodies. Bothering very little with traditional song structures, Abner seems to allow the songs to move where they’re supposed to, lilting and bursting along like a feel-good Sebadoh gorged on US Maple.

Beginning in 2005, and releasing their first album Distant Thunder of the Sacred Force on Joyful Noise in 2006, Abner Trio has always been a band that thrives on the unique and organic interaction between band members. The intricately calculated yet gritty style of Clinton Hughey’s guitar work combines with Daniel Paquette’s stream of subconsciousness lyrics – which themselves seem to embrace a brave sense of humor (see: opening lines to “Scurvy Killers”) while channeling madmen and Old Testament prophets. Behind it all sits the patiently powerful drumming of Karl Hofstetter, punching in explosive accents when necessary, and seeming to thrive on the re-assemblage of simple beats into his own occasionally confounding patterns.

Abner Trio will release their second full-length, The Giant Crushes You, August 24, 2010 on Joyful Noise Recordings (founded by the band's drummer, Karl Hofstetter, and home to Joan Of Arc, Jookabox, Marmoset, Child Bite, among others). With The Giant Crushes You, Abner Trio have created an album that triangulates exactness, rawness and beauty. Nearly three years in the making, Abner Trio’s second full length is hands-down the most accomplished documentation of their mathy, artsy, honest, and all-around original blend of indie-rock. Recommended!

Abner Trio - You're Gorgeus, Believe It!
Abner Trio @ MySpace

--

SONG OF THE DAY: Pete Yorn - Precious Stone
(from self-titled album, out September 28th on Vagrant Records)

--

Check Comments for Bonus!

The Joy Formidable

The Joy Formidable was conceived by music-obsessed friends Ritzy Bryan and Rhydian Dafydd when they were both students in Wales. After a brief hiatus, they relocated to London, brought in drummer Matt Thomas, and got down to writing and recording a record. The resulting sound melds the huge expanses of the band members' native Welsh countryside with the hectic nature of their new London home. That sound has won them the praise of the highly influential NME and airplay on the UK's Radio 1.

The Joy Formidable has sold out multiple UK tours throughout the past year and supported several standout bands including Editors and The Temper Trap. After touring the UK with Passion Pit, the band was invited to join them as the opening act to their shows at New York's Terminal 5. Additionally, this past spring the wowed audiences on an East Coast run, prompting Spin on its website to laud their show at the Bamboozle as "best breakout performance " of the entire festival.

The band's eight-song debut EP A Balloon Called Moaning has been critically well-received, with SPIN calling the release "ambitious... drenched in...fuzzy bass, propelled by...driving percussion... the album transforms shoegaze's ear-stabbing reverb into something pretty, airy, girly...and sometimes dark." FILTER went on to say that The Joy Formidable "rocks like a grungier version of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs...joyous." The New York Times congratulated the songs' "cryptic lyrics that glint with urgency" and said that "the music regenerates the turbulent haze of 1990s shoegazer rock, but... it's less tormented and more anthemic, confident of the pop structures at its core." Highly Recommended!

The Joy Formidable - Live at the Relentless Garage, London 30 September 2009
The Joy Formidable @ MySpace



--

SONG OF THE DAY: Women - Eyesore
(from Public Strain, out September 28th on Jagjaguwar)

--

Check Comments for Bonus!

The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt!

Founded in late 2007 as means for front man Neil Fridd to yell about his romantic mishaps, The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt! has blossomed into a real juggernaut of epic dance floor revelation.

What do they sound like? It’s sorta dance-soul music, like synthed out Otis Redding covers on fast forward. Dance music with too many cooks in the kitchen, but in a good way, so not too many cooks, maybe just an above average amount of cooks. That is to say, there are sweet beats: your ass wants to shake, but there’s also like four vocals and two horn lines happening too, making for a unique, dense, dance floor throw down that’s suitable for both club rock outs and secluded headphone listening. But perhaps more than both of these, you’ll find yourself wanting to be listening to this music at a Halloween party with all your friends, because before TPDR were trying to make your head bob or your ass shake they were trying to make your heart feel something. Whether they’re singing about a new romance, old friends, or a magical thing that happens when the roads are too icy for professors to get to school, TPDR are singing about something that you’ve felt, and doing so with a humor and sincerity so often lacking in indie music. Scenes and events are set up so perfectly that on a late night, driving in your car in the middle of nowhere you feel every emotion they’re singing about deep down in your gut: you’ll be getting chills on the subway during your morning commute. These songs will make you long for every boy or girl you almost kissed in high school, chuckle to yourself about how stupid and great your friends are and make you want to go camping, stay up late, dance on your fire escape, have a potluck dinner, jump in piles of leaves, French kiss in the back of a movie theater and finally go out and cut down a real Christmas tree this year.

The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt! have an album coming out on Luaka Bop this spring. It’s great. It’s ten tracks of absolute power. They’re touring the US nonstop starting in February with a new backing band called The Shakes. They’re now accepting summer barbecue invitations and really want to play someone’s senior prom like how the Spice Girls used to have competitions like that. The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt! are touring in support of their Luaka Bop debut album I Love You. I Love You. I Love You And I'm In Love With You. Highly Recommended!

TPDR - Ride/Friendship
TDPR @ MySpace

--

SONG OF THE DAY: Neutral Uke Hotel - King Of Carrot Flowers Pt.1
(from Neutral Uke Hotel project, 2010)

--

Check Comments for Bonus!

Gene Priest & The Cardinal Sin

It can't be easy to be an agnostic when your last name is a religious title, but the world of Gene Priest's songs is not a very friendly place to begin with.

Gene Priest is ordinarily a sideman mainstay in the Knoxville, TN, music scene - manning the drum-kit for indie-rock acts HiLites and Cold Hands and the sludge-metal quartet, Hot Blood - but with equal doses of ego and humility, he has stepped into the footlights with his debut EP, "Living To Die," mixed in Knoxville by Sparklehorse's Scott Minor.

Melding the lo-fi sentimentality of Minor and Mark Linkous' Sparklehorse with the ethereal escapism of Radiohead, Priest and his ad-hoc backing band, The Cardinal Sin, deliver four songs intent on the exploration of the darkest corners of self-worth. The music crawls along through the dust on "Living To Die," not because it hasn't learned to walk; rather, it simply doesn't see a need to stand. It's with underlying confidence and defiance, rather than apathy and malaise when Priest sings, "No, I don't care if I ever see the light."

You can keep your world, because Priest has found salvation in his own surroundings: a land of damp earth, cold waters and revelation hidden under every stone. Gene Priest and The Cardinal Sin's "Living to Die" EP is available for streaming and as a free, high-quality MP3 download from Lapdance Academy. Recommended!

Gene Priest and The Cardinal Sin - Living To Die EP (free download)
Gene Priest and The Cardinal Sin @ MySpace



--

SONG OF THE DAY: Film School - Heart Full Of Pentagons
(from Fission, out July 20th on FFO Records)

--

Check Comments for Bonus!

Modern Skirts

Born of four hopeful rednecks and numerous misconceptions, Athens, GA’s Modern Skirts crept onto the scene in 2005 with its debut album, ‘Catalogue of Generous Men’. The record was met with both critical praise (landing the 11 spot on Paste Magazines’ Top Records of 2005) and several unwanted comparisons (mostly to Ben Folds {avoid coupling male vocals with prominent piano on your band’s next record, as this convenient correlation is likely to be drawn}). The band also starred in a video for ‘Pasadena’, the record’s lead single, which received airplay on over 40 different networks. After two years of seemingly pointless touring around the States and a string of European dates in the summer of 2008 with hometown heroes REM (including stops at Glastonbury, Rock Werchter, and the MTV stage at London‘s O2 Wireless Festival), Modern Skirts returned to the studio with David Lowery (Cracker) and Mike Mills (REM) handling production duties. ‘All of Us in Our Night’ was the resulting self-released effort that climbed its way to 22 on the CMJ charts. It would be the only completely independent record to crack the CMJ’s Top 25 in 2009. With its lush electronic instrumentation and dazzling dark wit, ‘All of Us in Our Night’ received acclaim in many notable publications such as Spin and No Depression and was praised by Under The Radar as “one of the indie albums of the year”. But Pitchfork also chimed in, blasting the album for being “bloodless and hermetic” and “not as good as the first one”. Whoa Nancy! After signing on with renowned Chicago booking agency Red Ryder and taking home the trophy for Athens’ best pop band at the 2009 Flagpole Music Awards, Modern Skirts jumped right back into the studio to self-produce their third full-length player. These sessions yielded the band’s most confident and startlingly original material to date and are soon to be forced upon a super small, barely attentive audience.

Modern Skirts’ Happy 81 EP marks a stark contrast to their previous records. The band flexed its pop muscle on the debut record, Catalogue of Generous Men, and their sophomore effort, All Of Us In Our Night, found the band starting to push its own boundaries. The Happy 81 EP is a statement of intent, a flag in the ground, claiming a new territory after a long journey. The Happy 81 EP and their forthcoming full length record (due this fall) both have their origins in singer Jay Gulley’s bedroom four track cassette recordings. Through the years, while Modern Skirts was touring and recording their studio albums, hundreds of cassette demos were being recorded in the off time. These songs were purely for enjoyment, never to be heard by anyone outside of the band. Eventually, the band realized that these recordings were bolder and more exciting than anything they had approached before.

The Happy 81 EP was recorded and mixed exclusively by the band at home. The original tape recordings were digitized and mixed and mastered. These recordings are as raw and alive as you can get. The EP sounds like a secret that no one was supposed to hear. The EP looks forward to the full length, which takes these home recordings and adds the sparkle and punch of studio recording to the grit and viscera of the home demos. Highly Recommended!

Modern Skirts - Rebecca St. Claire
Modern Skirts @ MySpace

--

SONG OF THE DAY: Melvins - The Water Glass
(from The Bride Screamed Murder, out June 1st on Ipecac Recordings)

--

Check Comments for Bonus!

Twin Tigers

Hailing from the ever blooming Athens, GA scene, Twin Tigers are ready to unleash their dynamic sound unto the universe. Along with other elements of the past five decades of rock music, Twin Tigers blend noise textures with pop structure and shoegaze overtones shaping a sound that’s all new.

Formed by co-workers at the Michael Stipe-owned Grit restaurant, guitarist/vocalist Matthew Rain and bassist Aimee Morris began Twin Tigers as their previous bands dissolved. In February 2008,Curious Faces / Violet Future EP was released to great reviews. The band quickly started building a solid fan base throughout the southeast and played shows with Deerhunter, Dead Confederate, Jay Reatard, Black Lips, Dungen, Woods, Snowden and A Place to Bury Strangers.

After a slew of revolving guitarists and drummers the band debuted its current lineup with guitarist Forrest Hall, opening for Les Savy Fav at the Earl in Atlanta only a few weeks before their first trip to SXSW 2009. Upon returning from SXSW, the band began recording an album with Joel Hatstat in Athens, GA.

Following the wrap up of their full length, the band was chosen for a nation wide tour with Minus the Bear and the Antlers in the fall of 2009. Twin Tigers have been on the road supporting their recently released Gray Waves and announce national dates supporting Interpol following their stint supporting the Hold Steady! Twin Tigers’ debut album Gray Waves is out now via Brooklyn based Old Flame Records. Recommended!

Twin Tigers - Passive Idol
Twin Tigers - Live At WOXY
Twin Tigers - Automatic EP (free album)
Twin Tigers @ MySpace




--

SONG OF THE DAY: M.I.A. - XXXO
(from MAYA, out 7/13 on N.E.E.T/XL/Interscope)

--

Check Comments for Bonus!

Peter Wolf Crier

Peter Wolf Crier are Peter Pisano & Brian Moen. Pisano's is not a new songwriting voice. He is best known for being part of the Wars of 1812, an ascendant Wisconsin-bred quartet. Their first album together, Status Quo Ante Bellum, was more than just an album. It was relocation and aspiration and Pisano's lyrical Eden. As the Wars went on hiatus, Pisano continued to hone his craft, keeping his days full as a teacher at a small private school while fine-tuning, at night, the songs that would soon become Inter-Be. Feeling confident in the songs, Pisano approached Moen, a seasoned drummer and engineer best known for his involvement in Laarks and Amateur Love. After being asked to add some percussive elements, Moen added his thundering drum rolls and perfectly timed fills, but he also added something much more: a melodic soundscape that would complete the evolution of the songs. So was born the partnership that is called Peter Wolf Crier.

Peter Wolf Crier is set to take America by storm as they embark on their first ever U.S. tour starting June 7. On most of the dates, Peter Wolf Crier will be joined by Freelance Whales. Live, Peter Wolf Crier sound much larger than you'd expect from a two-piece. Lead singer Peter Pisano is a man possessed, strumming his overdriven acoustic guitar with force enough to draw blood and belting out the tunes like a pompadoured crooner of days gone by. All the while his feet are in constant motion, playing basslines on the pedal organ and sampling his own voice along the way. Meanwhile, drummer Brian Moen keeps the train on course with a lurching and powerful steadiness highlighted with machine-like flourishes while harmonizing a sweet yang to Pisano's yin. It is an all encompassing live experience by any measure. Highly Recommended!

Peter Wolf Crier - Hard As Nails
Peter Wolf Crier - Crutch And Cane
Peter Wolf Crier - Daytrotter Session
Peter Wolf Crier @ MySpace


--

SONG OF THE DAY: The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio
(from High Violet, out May 11th on 4AD)

--

Check Comments for Bonus!